Chasing the White Rabbit
by Swordsman422
Summary: AU sequel to "Judge the Sky" and "The Line is a Canyon." Cameron's efforts to fix her programming fail, a mission against Kaliba goes south, and the perceptions of a machine are changed forever.
1. Chapter 1: Errant Hex

**Chasing the White Rabbit**

Disclaimer: I do not own Sarah Connor Chronicles or the Terminator Saga. The following events are fictional.

Authors Note: This story is the third in the Judge the Sky AU series, but because it is very different, it can be taken mostly on its own. If you like, please read "Judge the Sky" and "The Line is a Canyon" in order to understand some of the references here. If not, then you may view this story as stand-alone. Thus story is AU, and ignores the events in "To the Lighthouse" and beyond. This story is going to be a weird one, but it's been percolating for a while. I more or less expect all of you to finish this wondering just what the hell you've just read… and I'm okay with that. I'm not expecting much love on this one.

Now that I have established the storyline of the world, my fics are going to be getting shorter and more episodic. I probably won't write more in a single fic than could have been shown in 45 minutes of television.

Yes, I am familiar with the meaning of the slang term that this title takes its name from. All things given, it isn't terribly inappropriate and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The song featured in this story is "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane. Please give it a listen. Two and a half minutes is not a terribly great investment of time.

Enjoy.

**Chapter 1: Errant Hex**

_One pill makes you larger_

_And one pill makes you small_

_And the ones that mother gives you_

_Don't do anything at all_

_Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall_

_And if you go chasing rabbits_

_And you know you're going to fall_

_Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar_

_Has given you the call_

_To call Alice, when she was just small_

_When the men on the chessboard get up_

_And tell you where to go_

_And you've just had some kind of mushroom_

_And your mind is moving low_

_Go ask Alice, I think she'll know_

_When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead_

_And the white knight is talking backwards_

_And the red queen's "off with her head"_

_Remember what the dormouse said_

_Feed your head!_

_Feed your head!_

Cameron's eyes snapped open with a cold blue flash. The start-up sequence had been successful. Date: August 30, 2008. Time: 15:31:22. It was a Saturday. Just two weeks ago, she and the Connors had returned from a mission to Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, to intercept an infiltration unit that sought to escalate tensions between the US and Russia. They had succeeded, and had managed to escape the authorities and an enemy T-888.

The mattress creaked beneath her as she sat up on her bed. The internal clock had revealed that she had been shut down for no less than fifty-six minutes. On the mission, Cameron had taken damage, which included corruption of her behavioral software programs. She had spent the time trying to perform reparative rewrites to these programs, as the interactions among these protocols determined her behaviors. For the past two weeks she had been burdened with a level of humanity that put her directives at risk. She had been forced to transfer hunks of data from her reference personality to her primary behavioral program to stay functioning. The two had slowly started to meld together, their code and data overlapping, until new attributes began to emerge. Cameron had developed, through damage to her CPU and corruption to her software, emotions and feelings that, while not odd to the humans around her, were alien and unnecessary in a cybernetic organism such as herself.

She had spent the past hour delving deep within her own AI, examining her own code, and trying to purge all components of the reference program from her own personality. Flying through a world of indescribable cyberspace, she had coded, programmed, compiled, and written in a way that would remind any human of ripping, tearing, patching, and stitching, as if the combination of instincts, memories, and drives could be worked like cloth. It was as though she was trying to divide and reconcile the mindless drone, the cyborg individual, and the biological personality. Her complex artificial being had begun like a quilt with all the pieces in order, and had now been reduced to a patchwork puzzle, melding and folding and warping on itself. She was functional, but her programming was held together with the hexadecimal equivalent of duct tape.

The female terminator set her bare feet on the hardwood floor of the bedroom she had been assigned. She felt the coolness of the floor on the soles and simultaneously thought that it was unpleasant while at the same time recognizing the temperature as sixty-three degrees Fahrenheit.

Her datastream processed contemplation on the biological entity after whom she had been design and upon whom her reference personality had been based. Allison Young had been a resistance courier, a strong-willed, fierce, and independent human who had been defiant to the last, in spite of the pain brought to her by the memories of her family and friends, all of whom had been long dead by the time she had been interviewed and studied. Cameron had inherited some of her quirks. The cyborg could thank her progenitor for a certain stubbornness, a myriad of likes and dislikes, and an almost machine-like drive to perform. When not running in parallel to her Skynet-written directives of how to behave and accomplish a mission, Allison Young showed up in Cameron as ghostly behaviors, abnormal thoughts. To Cameron, that she would ever do something that Allison would do was as off-putting as it could be. Cameron was a machine, carefully designed and logically programmed. Allison was a fallible, irrational human who suffered from biological pressures distinct and different from Cameron's artificial ones. All that remained of Allison was a programmed set of attributes that told Cameron how a girl of the age Cameron was supposed to appear might behave.

But more and more of Allison's own personality had begun to exhibit itself. Or at least that is what Cameron theorized. Why else would she be showing signs of jealousy, distress, cynicism, and possessiveness? Allison's undue influence was to blame. And so, Cameron determined that everything that was Allison Young had to be purged from her primary behavioral protocols if Cameron was going to return to being the best machine she could possibly be. If she could not, then John Connor, whose life it was her greatest directive to protect, would be in danger and that was something that she could not allow. This she knew with her infallible and perfect memory. Anything that caused her to make mistakes for any reason must be dealt with in a logical and cold fashion.

And this was something that her last fifty-six minutes had been wasted attempting. Cameron knew it because Cameron could still feel it. She was frustrated, _frustrated_, at her own failures and shortcomings in the same way a seventeen-year-old girl would be. It was the same kind of frustration that would more readily express itself in slapping a hand on a table than cataloguing an incident for further analysis in hopes of improvement.

There was only room on her multistage graphene molecular core neural net processor for one individual and the machine intelligence was going to be it (interjection: god dammit)!

Cameron looked around her room, noticing that she had laid aside the copy of Lewis Carroll's _Alice in Wonderland_ that she had been reading as part of a school assignment. Sarah had decided that John and Cameron would return to highschool this year with the explanation that they had spent the past year homeschooling because of medical issues related to a car accident. For whatever reason, either everyone accepted them as the Baum family in spite of the fact that Sarah's face had been slathered all over the television several weeks ago, or no one cared. After the group had managed to escape, the authorities hadn't pursued them. Their names had been removed from the FBI watch list. Sarah had even been stopped by a policeman for having a tail light out and let go with just a friendly warning. None of them were sure why this was so, but they weren't interested in protesting it.

The terminator heard noise coming from downstairs. Two voices, and lots of racket from the TV. She enhanced and demodulated the sounds. She already knew that Sarah and Derek were out, pursuing a lead they had on Kaliba. They had been gone since that morning and she did not anticipate their return until nightfall. As she prepared to listen in she was already certain of who it was.

"I got you now, bro." This was John's voice. He was enthusiastic.

"No way, man." This was Morris Chavez, John's best friend. John had reconnected with him and the two hung out often now. Morris had once held romantic intentions towards Cameron, but those had faded away. He had a girlfriend now, and while Cameron had never met her, John had, and had commented that she was socially desirable as he teased Morris about how lucky he was.

Curious, Cameron stood up and walked her way downstairs towards the living room.

"Here I come!"

"Oh, yeah!"

"Yep! Yep!" There was a barrage of gunfire. Cameron was quickly able to determine that the shots were not real and that they did not come from any firearm that she was familiar with, which meant all of them. Ever.

"Nope!" There was an explosive sound. Then more shots. As Cameron rounded the corner, she saw the two boys sitting on the couch, game controllers in their hands. The television was divided vertically and two humanoid sprites were displayed, engaging each other with fictional weapons.

"No," John squalled, "No!" Another explosion happened and one of the characters was sent flying surrounded by clouds of red mist. "Motherfucker, that is bullshit," he laughed as Morris raised his arms in victory.

"Is Morris winning again," Cameron asked, by way of conversation.

"Dude is kicking my _ass_," John confirmed.

"You need to get a console, bro," Morris laughed, "I wouldn't be owning you so much if you had one of your own. And I wouldn't have to risk mine by bringing it over all the time."

"True," John nodded.

"Cameron, you wanna play," Morris asked her, offering his own controller.

"No thank you," Cameron said. She simulated a yawn, her cover for being offline was that she had been taking a nap, "I was on my way to the kitchen for a glass of water."

"Hell, I could use some game fuel," her charge said, "can you get us a couple sodas, and a bag of those cheese things?"

"We only have the puffy ones left," Cameron said, "you ate all the others."

"I like the puffy ones," Morris said. The terminator, the high-tech killing machine, turned on her heel, pausing only to smirk to herself at the lowly task before marching into the kitchen.

Her first order of business was to grab a glass and fill it with water. She had not hydrated in the last twenty-four hours and so she needed to refill her water bunkerage by six-point-four ounces. She put exactly this much in the glass and tipped it back, draining it in just a few swallows. Once inside her, her systems ensured that the water was distributed properly to provide cooling for her power cells, refresh her bionutrient blood, and moisturize her eyes, her mouth, and her biological sinuses.

She set the glass down and ran a momentary diagnostic to ascertain the status of her protein bunkerage. She had enough to repair any anticipated damage, but by tomorrow, she would have replaced in completion the top dermal layer and would probably need to consume. After this, Cameron turned her HUD off and went to set her glass in the sink. As she put it down, movement in the corner of her eye drew her attention.

For just a moment, she saw the back of a figure disappear around the corner, a Caucasian human female of slight build with long brown hair, nude but for a pair of heavy combat boots. Had John invited over another friend? Was this Morris's girlfriend? Why was she naked? Cameron followed around the corner to investigate only to be greeted with an empty hallway.

The machine was confused. Not enough time had elapsed for the mysterious female to climb up the stairs, and Cameron was fairly certain that standards of human modesty would not allow her to walk out the front door, though considering her state of dress, Cameron was not certain at what level modesty applied. And how could the machine not have been aware of her? When Cameron had noticed her, she had been walking out of the kitchen. It had only been the briefest of glances, but Cameron was certain of it. Just to prove it to herself, she accessed her recordings and played back the…

The girl was not present in her visual records. Even though Cameron knew and remembered seeing her. It was all very illogical, she thought, as she stood barefoot in the hallway, feeling the east-by-southeast part of the house sliding downward at its average rate of point-nine-three millimeters per year. As predicted earlier that summer, Cameron had helped Sarah, John, and Derek repaint.

She heard a scratching sound on the hardwood floor and looked down. A dormouse, _Eliomys quercinus_, was crawling its way along the wall. Cameron followed the rodent with her eyes. It was either unaware of her presence or didn't care as it continued to scuttle along the floor.

"You don't belong here," she told it as she followed slowly behind it, just as concerned with the presence of a rodent that might carry diseases in the house as she was that the _Eliomys quercinus_ was not native to North America and presented a potential ecological hazard. The rodent was making its way to the kitchen, perhaps scavenging for food. Cameron decided to obey Sarah's directive that she not kill things needlessly and scooped it up, holding it in such a way to keep it from biting her. "You can't live in our home, mouse," she told it. She walked back through the kitchen and out the back door, gently placing the creature next to the brick wall of one of the flower beds.

"Don't come back," she warned before going back inside. She went to the sink, stood before it, and placed her hand back on the glass she had drank from, staring at it for perhaps a second. Next, she washed her hands thoroughly before bringing John and Morris their requested drinks and snacks, still trying to work through the discrepancy between her memory and her records.

X

"So, did you find anything," John's enthusiasm was obvious when his mother and Derek walked through the door. They looked tired and happy to be home, and Sarah's annoyance at being assaulted by her son so soon after arriving home without a chance to sit down was plain. Even Cameron could read it.

"Hi, John," she said with audible sarcasm, "I'm doing fine, thanks for asking. How was your day?" In spite of her tone, she drew him near and hugged him. Affection, Cameron noticed, was not something that was widely distributed in the Connor household, so for Sarah to embrace her son, she was in a good mood. That meant positive news for Cameron, and probably an answer John would also like. After all, with Wiley dead and his efforts to bring about a new cold war failed, the dangers posed by the future were nonexistent. No more Skynet was the mantra that they had kept telling themselves these past few weeks. They only had Skynet's remaining operatives here to deal with. And Sarah was plenty happy to go ahead and deal with them now instead of letting them slowly learn of their failure.

"Hey, mom," John greeted, returning her hug. He turned and looked at Derek. Both he and Cameron finally noticed that the resistance soldier was carrying two pizza boxes. "Alright," John said, "dinner."

"Yep," Sarah said, looking around, "where's your friend?"

"Morris had a hot date," Cameron answered for him, "he left at six thirty."

There was a flash of disappointment on Sarah's face. "Oh," she said, "well, we have plenty to eat."

In a few short minutes, the table was set and the three humans were sitting around it, distributing pizza from one of the two boxes. Cameron herself had developed a consistent preference for pepperoni, but she was still another twenty hours away from needing to partake of any protein or nutrients. In fact, two slices would last her nearly a month so long as she took no damage to her dermal layer. So while the humans were at the table, the cyborg stood by the sink so that she could hear Sarah tell them about what she and Derek had discovered. While she waited, Cameron had been paying attention to the television on the counter, where the CEO of some technologies company called ZeiraCorp was being interviewed. The redheaded woman was discussing their latest project automating wind farms in Texas.

"Cameron," the woman called to her. The machine turned her attention to John Connor's mother, "would you like to sit down?" She was gesturing to the empty seat. Her tone wasn't anything other than invitingly civil, and Cameron noticed there was even a place setting for her.

Sarah Connor had softened towards Cameron in these past weeks, and Cameron was uncertain as to why. Being kind to a terminator seldom won a person any special consideration when that unit went bad and began killing everything with a heartbeat. But Sarah had forgotten, either on purpose or by accident, that Cameron, in her efforts to kill John during a malfunction, had sadistically tortured her. John's mother had been showing Cameron certain things that were unnecessary for her mission, like how to cook, and would even engage in idle conversation now and again. It was a drastic change from the war-weary, goal-driven Sarah that Cameron had known, who would seldom speak to her about anything that wasn't related to the task at hand. And Sarah still wasn't above a harsh word or a rebuke when needed, but even the nature of her anger had changed.

"Cameron, please," Sarah said, a little more urgently, "sit."

Seeing that there was no escaping from a short dive into the human realm of family, Cameron pulled out a chair and sat. She was right across from Derek, whose green eyes watched her, but they were empty of suspicion. Cameron recalled that as the four of them were making their escape from a terminator and a burning house, Cameron's damaged ankle servo had given out. Derek had offered to carry her to safety. His attitude towards her had remained overtly unchanged, but every now and again, she could see cracks in his dislike for her. Perhaps it had devolved into more of an unfriendly rivalry. Cameron wasn't human. She didn't know.

"Want anything?" This question from Sarah. Cameron locked eyes with her, and calculated a dismal sixty-four point three percent likelihood that her surprise and confusion remained hidden. Most of the time, Cameron was able to retain her mask of robotic perfection, but there were times that it still failed her, and she was certain with a fear she had never known before that they would realize that her malfunction wasn't over, that she was still broken. And if they discovered her, Cameron was sure, Sarah would carry out her threat of disassembling her. Current positive treatment did not make Cameron less cautious or suspect. The humans had threatened to have her shut down and melted if she went bad, and all previous indicators were that they never made empty or dismissable threats. But there had been moments, such as this one, that the terminator was barely able to contain her surprise.

There were certain… Cameron was hesitant to call them advantages… to these feelings. Cameron's new ankle servo had required adjusting and calibration, so Cameron had danced ballet every day just to get it dialed in properly. She didn't have two years worth of work to get it taken care of. But she had discovered that now she was able to enjoy the music she danced to. It was no longer just sound that provided her with a medium. And on top of that, Cameron also enjoyed dancing. And this discovery brought with it all sorts of emotions that Cameron wasn't even able to classify, just as many positive as negative. And no matter what flavor of emotions might occur, Cameron was not keen on experiencing more of them. So in spite of the fact that the pizzas smelled… as if eating a slice might be… interesting, Cameron declined. And in spite of being tempted by the foamy bubbles and pleasing aroma of the cherry cola John had just popped open, she continued to decline. Denial would remain a factor to practice.

Cameron changed the subject. "Tell us about this target."

Derek spoke up, "it's a water distribution center."

"Water," John smirked, "Kaliba?"

"It's a front," Sarah said, "they are running operations out of there just like Desert Canyon Heat and Air." The Kaliba Group was an international firm that focuses, very overtly, on technology. Several very public subsidiaries were their aerospace, medical, and consumer technology divisions. It was possible, for example, for any aerophile to tour the Kaliba factory in Seattle, Washington and see production of the latest combat drones or the newest general aviation aircraft. Kaliba was even a contractor responsible for remanufacturing parts for legacy fighter planes like the A-4 Skyhawk and F-4 Phantom still used around the world. With a press pass or an appointment, anyone interested could walk into the Kaliba Medical facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma to look at the latest in prosthetic limbs, ocular implants, and mechanical organs. Kaliba Electronics had just recently released a third generation of their smart phone that was being touted as a major hit. Kaliba robots were assisting doctors perform surgeries and building cars. Helicopters and civilian airplanes bearing the Kaliba trademark were considered some of the safest available. The corporation, founded just eight years ago, was publically traded on the stock market and had made it onto the list of Fortune 500 companies. It was an industrial monolith.

But the group around the table knew that Kaliba hid some other shadowy purpose. There existed some incredibly secretive projects that the company was willing to kill to keep from becoming public. They were dabbling in the same ionized jet propulsion technology seen in Skynet's aerial hunter/killers. They were producing prototypes made from the same hyperalloy that made Cameron so dangerous. They had been experimenting with graphene-based molecular processing chips of the type installed into all of Skynet's machines. And they had attempted to kill Sarah, twice, in their efforts to keep her quiet and unthreatening. Whether they knew it or not, they were dealing with some extremely dangerous technology. Cameron, cynically, calculated an 84.2% likelihood that they knew exactly what they were doing. They were paving the way for Skynet. They were preparing for the future war.

"What kind of operations," John asked before taking a bite of his pizza.

"Not sure," Sarah replied.

"How are you so sure it's them?"

The woman smiled, "they got sloppy once or twice."

"A couple of the truck drivers forgot to swap their tags," Derek said, "they're the same as the ones we've seen at some of their other ops."

"Plus, the security there is pretty tight," Sarah added, "especially for a water distribution warehouse."

Cameron chose this as a good moment to speak up. "Given their security measures, they probably knew you were watching.

Sarah shook her head. "Doubt it. The place is in an industrial park, in the back, but there isn't any way that they don't get observed a lot. Office workers coming in and out next door. Mail deliveries. That sort of thing."

"We were careful," Derek told the machine, with enough edge to his voice to let her know that he wasn't trying to assure her. Perhaps he was being defensive. Perhaps, and Cameron considered this the most likely, he was just being a dick.

John would not allow the moment of awkward silence between his uncle and the terminator stand. "Cool, what's the plan?"

Sarah smirked, "Derek and I were going to sneak past the security, break in, and get a look at their files. I was going to give you some money so that you and Cameron could go see a midnight matinee. Be out of this house in case they came looking for us."

The boy's face screwed, "no! Mom, that's lame. I wanna come. Not go see some lame-ass flick with the tin can," he glanced at her, "no offense." Typical John, delivering a purposeful insult and then an apology, as if she were supposed to accept it. As if he just expected her to take it because she was a machine with no feelings. And as much as Cameron would prefer to be such a machine, the verbal jab still hurt. But she swallowed her disappointment and allowed it to be replaced by enthusiasm for a mission that she could perform.

"I want to come, too," she interjected with perhaps too much force, "You might need me. Besides, I don't wanna go see some lame-ass flick with the meat bag," she glanced at John, "no offense." He smirked at her, and she felt some satisfaction knowing that her barb hat hit the mark. Two could play at this game, and Cameron, newly infused with humanity, could play as well as anyone. And the chortle from Sarah proved it.

"Your encounters with Kaliba haven't exactly been metal-free," John argued, "you might need Cameron. And since it's her mission to protect me, I need to be wherever she is." Cameron had to confess to herself that John had a valid point. And the boy was slowly turning into the leader he was supposed to be. He had even dared to face a T-888 armed with nothing more than a ten-pound sledge hammer. The T-888 had been critically damaged and had not expected the ferocious assault on its cranium, but it had still been a case of human vs. machine where the human had come out the victor. Even now with the subdued emotions she now possessed, Cameron was impressed by his actions. And unlike his previous adventures, he continued to look for ways to prove himself.

The enthusiasm that gripped him was contagious, and Cameron discovered herself even more willing to go on this mission. It was certainly better than spending her Saturday night washing dishes and doing laundry. "We should all go," she added to John's arguments, "the more of us there are, the better our chances of success if it comes to a fight."

Sarah relented, but said "I doubt it will come to a fight, Cameron. It's just a simple break-in."


	2. Chapter 2: Blank

**Chapter 2: Blank**

The fight wasn't going well at all. The security had been a lone terminator, an early 800 series with what Cameron was able to identify as skin model 147, a middle-aged man with icy eyes and frosty grey hair trimmed close to the scalp. While the earlier 800s were not as intelligent or nimble as the later 888s, they more than made up for it with their hulking build and incredible strength. That strength had been sacrificed in the 888 for flexibility and speed, or in Cameron's case for ease of infiltration. They had encountered him patrolling the halls of the building, armed with a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun and a Jericho 941 pistol chambered for a .45 caliber round. Both weapons made what a human might call a frightening sound when they were fired, and the projectiles were just as deadly as the weapons sounded.

Right now, the three humans and female terminator were in what Cameron took to be a storage room where the water this front company distributed was stored for bottling. They were taking cover behind one of the large tanks, which was leaking from three bullet holes. Sarah and Derek had only thought to bring pistols, though the ever-pessimistic Derek's choice had been a Mark XIX Desert Eagle. The .50 caliber action express round would put a serious hole in their enemy, and if properly aimed could even take out his chip, but none of them had been able to get close enough to do more than superficial damage.

Sarah shimmied around one side of the storage tank, followed by Cameron, while John leaned out and took aim. His SIG Sauer pistol popped off six rounds that stitched into the chest of his target, which was unable to return effective fire until the boy had gone to ground again. Cameron was relieved to find that the enemy machine did not focus on John, which meant that it was entirely unaware of who it was dealing with. Still, as an intruder into the T-800's domain, her charge was in no less danger. She reached back and grabbed his shirt, pulling him further into cover.

The thundering blasts of Derek's handcannon rang out with deafening tenor once, twice, three times before both the shotgun and the Jericho answered. The sound of metal hitting metal told Cameron that the return fire had come too late.

"Goddamm it," Sarah groused, "he was supposed to wait." They were trying to draw the terminator in, forcing it to waste ammunition so that it would be have to close. At this point either Derek could put a bullet through the right eye or Cameron could take it down with physical force. Derek only had two clips for the monster pistol, and he had already spent one in the first moments of the firefight, trading bullets for time. Given the capacity of the .50 caliber magazine, he only had four shots left. Cameron watched as Sarah stepped out, putting her Wather PPQ to work. Eight 9mm rounds found the T-800's head before it turned and opened fire on her. Its shots found empty space once more, but she needed to reload.

John fired twice before his weapon clicked impotently, and he ducked back with a curse. He, too, ejected his spent magazine and rammed another home. Though they had been hoping to save Cameron's nature as a surprise, it was time for her to act. She ran around Sarah, raising her Glock 17 as she moved. She put a half-dozen rounds into his chest and neck. She was in the open when he returned fire, and ball bearings from a shotgun blast caught her in the side. Her tactile sensors registered the damage. It was not severe. She rounded another tank and ran for her target. The kinesthetic sensors in her body combined with the tactical knowledge in her database and the automatic stabilization of her servos to keep the aim dot in her HUD right on her opponent. She squeezed off three more rounds on the move as the T-800 targeted her the shotgun with a single hand and fended off a barrage of fire from Sarah with the other.

Before he could raise his weapon to her, Cameron was on him, barreling into him with enough force to knock him over. They both went down, and the 800's weapons clattered on the floor. He reached for his shotgun, but Cameron's boots were nearer and so she kicked it sideways before she even bothered to stand. This was a mistake. The T-800 was on his feet before Cameron could get to hers. His cold blue eyes now glowed red as they scanned her and he discovered what she was. He grabbed her shirt in a cross-grip. Defensively she swept his hands away from her and thrust a boot heel into the side of his knee. The T-800s were not as quick as the later models, but they were sturdily built, and so the joint held. One of the massive paws balled into a fist and slammed into her delicate face like a wrecking ball, laying her out on her back. She was forced to roll out of the way of his stomping boot, and his foot crushed the clay tiles that layered the floor. Cameron started to push herself up, but was thrown by a vicious soccer kick to her side. She tumbled, rolled, and began again to struggle to her feet. Fortunately there was no damage to her endoskeleton.

The enemy metal snatched a fire axe from a nearby column and came after her with it. His first swing struck steel support, as did his second. His third swipe caught Cameron in the back with the pick, tearing through the white cotton tank top and ripping the flesh from the shoulder blade of her endoskeleton. Exposed metal slicked with red bionutrient glistened beneath her torn sheath, the ragged ribbons of the white shirt stained red with her false blood. She reeled from the blow, and the axe blade caught her in the cheek, cutting a long and ugly rent from temple to chin. The metal on metal contact threw golden sparks, but Cameron already knew that the damage was superficial. She would heal in a few days, though absently she found herself regretting not taking the earlier offer of a slice of pizza. Another swing came at her, but this time she snatched the axe's shoulder just beneath the head and yanked hard. The improvised weapon flew from her opponents hand and into hers. Now, she had something with which she could defend herself. She came at him, swinging twice into empty space. His bodybuilder's mitt gripped the axe handle and he brought his knee into it, snapping the wooden handle like a twig. Cameron was unable to adjust quickly and before she could rearrange her defensive posture, he lifted her up and smashed her into a water tank. The force of the blow punctured the storage tank and water came pouring down over both of them. The T-800 turned and launched her into the air. She flailed, turning end over end before crashing into a heap on the floor. Her gyros readjusted and she began to push herself up again, but he was already there. Lifting her by a wad of her tattered shirt and the waistband of her soaked jeans, he flung her again.

Cameron slammed into a concrete wall and slumped, barely aware of the gunfire that was raining out in her defense. She pushed a lock of her drenched hair out of her face, stood, and reengaged the other machine just as it had found her pistol and was raising it to fire. She gripped his arm and forced it down over her knee, reversing the elbow join with an audible pop. Her own free elbow slammed into the nose of her opponent, causing red bionutrient to squirt from his nostrils. He grasped her and lifted, flinging her into one of the cooling units. She crashed through in a shower of sparks and metal, falling through the refrigerator and down towards the floor, landing in the ankle-deep puddle their battle had created. She was about to stand, but as she did so, the cooling unit tore loose from its mounts and crashed into the puddle with her. Electrical conduit fell into the very same water she was laying in. Two-hundred and forty volts of electricity coursed through the water and into her metal limbs. Her HUD sizzled and went out of focus, icons and imagery went sideways and crumpled like paper on a writing desk. Her self-protective protocols activated and shut down her chip.

Cameron's world went dark.

X

Cameron's brown eyes snapped open. The start-up sequence must have finished, for she was again awake and alert. She immediately noticed that her HUD function was gone. She had only her standard infiltration vision, her human eyes. The read-outs and extra data provided by her HUD were absent. She tried to call it up, but nothing happened. She was lying on her back, not on her face like she had fallen. There were no sounds of battle around her. The ceiling looked different. Curious, Cameron sat up, immediately noticing the soft creak of a mattress beneath her.

Where was she? She estimated that the room was six feet by ten feet. The walls were cinderblock, painted white, and the floor was white ceramic tile that slanted down to a drain in the middle. The whiteness of the room's paint highlighted the dinginess. Dirt and stains blotted the walls, and black filth tinted the grout of the tile. Dents and scratches in the wall had been painted over, caked with latex acrylic to the point that the sharp edges had been blunted and softened. A head turn revealed the door, a heavy metal structure with a naked steel kickplate at the bottom. A single square window was fixed with shatterproof glass. A sliding slot was cut into the door midway from the floor. Over in the corner was a sink stand and a toilet, both porcelain that was once white, aged and begrimed by years of use.

She lay on wrought-iron twin bed frame with a thin, cheap mattress. Her olfactory sensors at once indicated that the mattress had outlived its designed lifetime, probably twice over by now. There was a thin, frayed sheet, a dingy comforter, and two well-beaten pillows, all of it white, or white-ish. She threw the comforter back to uncover her legs and discovered herself to be dressed in a set of white scrub pants with a matching long-sleeve top, surprisingly new and clean. Her feet were bare, but she noticed a pair of slippers next to the bed. When she kicked her feet off the bed and set them on the cold floor, she noticed that there was a single dark red-brown stain, obviously old blood, dried into the very middle of the sheet. She absently wondered whose it was as she checked herself for damage. Her sensors were registering none, but like her HUD they could simply be offline, so she felt around with her hands. Her flesh covering had obviously regenerated.

Shoving on the slippers, she stood off the bed and walked over to the sink to look in the mirror. The mirror, she saw, was behind a lexan window, apparently to prevent it from being shattered. But the familiar face copied from Allison Young stared back at her. There was no indication that she had ever been in a fight. The amount of damage she had accrued would take at least three days to heal.

_John!_ Where was he? Where was Sarah? And Derek? If she had been offline long enough to completely regenerate her biological sheath, then something must have happened to them. She turned for the door. Pressing a hand against it, she expected it to open, so when she collided bodily with it, she wasn't certain what to make of it. She tested it. The door was locked from the outside.

Analyzing the hinges and the wall brackets, she determined that she would be easily able to kick it open. She brought a leg up with all her available force and _wham!_ She was suddenly on her back on the floor. Her vision crackled a bit and she had a minor damage indicator, tactile only, on the back of her head. It was in her efforts to analyze the nature of the damage and failing that she noticed it, the intercom panel next to the door. It had a naked metal speaker cover and a red call button. Experimentally, she pressed the call button. A tone played.

"Can I help you, Ms. Phillips?" The voice may have been tinny through the old speaker, but she was able to recognize it as female, and estimated the age range between thirty-five and fifty-five. So, they knew her name here. Wherever this was.

"Yes," Cameron replied, "can you let me out?"

There was a pause, then "not right now, Ms. Phillips. You can come out in another… hour and twenty minutes."

"That's not acceptable," Cameron said, "I need to get out now."

"One hour," the voice was firm, "and twenty minutes. Then you can be out all you want." There was a static pop, and Cameron noticed a light on the speaker go out. Undeterred, she pressed the call button again. "Yes?" The owner of the voice was obviously losing patience.

"I need to come out now," Cameron told her, "it's urgent."

"It can wait," the voice snapped, "for eighty more minutes."

Cameron reminded herself that this woman controlled her freedom. She could not get herself through the door, and the woman was not going to listen to Cameron's pleas. She resigned herself to the wait, but she did need one more critical piece of information. "Can you tell me where I am?"

There was a long pause, but this time the voice came back patiently, and perhaps laced with pity. "Pescadero State Hospital. Where else?"

X

The eighty minutes did not pass peacefully. Cameron could not help herself but to be stunned that she was in a mental institution, being held for unknown reasons. Meanwhile, somewhere out there John and Sarah Connor struggled against a machine that would probably kill them. They were alone and outnumbered by Kaliba's forces. They needed her.

Terminators seldom do well in captivity if they are left active, and Cameron was no different. Unable to escape her cell, she began pacing the confined space like a claustrophobic leopard, her brown ocular sensors occasionally darting towards the door to scan for any change in status. While she was unable to run a complete diagnostic on herself, she was certain that she was ready to fight when and if the need arose. And her need to get out would be translated in full force to anyone who opened the door.

Per her programming, she began to process a plan to escape, but with a large number of her systems apparently offline and not responding to her commands, she was unable to run full analytical simulations in a multi-dimensional environment. She was also unable to call up any information in her library and could not access visual plans of the hospital or the surrounding area, though she was able to recall memory-specific data about the layout of the institution and that might prove adequate to navigate out if she needed. The orderlies were likely human and could be easily taken down with a few quick hits. Though the door had stymied her, they were probably did not have anything else out there that could contain a machine in full rampage mode.

…o_ne pill makes you larger…_

As she paced and planned, she became aware of something she was unable to explain. There was an ominous feeling surrounding her, a feeling as though she were on the verge of something critically important, though she had no clue what that was. She was not certain if the feeling was positive or negative, but she was very much aware of the pressure and finiteness of time.

…o_ne pill makes you small…_

The more she thought about it, the more it weighed on her and became obvious that something, something important was going to happen, and happen soon, but she could not say with any certainty what it was.

_…and the ones that mother gives you don't do anything at all…_

But it stood within her mind like a haunting of storm clouds on the horizon. Like a euphemism. And it, the _it_, made it all the more important that she get out of this cell and find John and Sarah.

_...go ask Alice when she's ten feet tall…_

She heard the lock of her door click, and the sound brought her to pause and attention. Still unable to perform a systems check, she readied herself for combat, the biological muscles beneath her cloned flesh tensed in preparation to fight. She locked her feet and had her arms raised as she watched with cold analysis and hot interest as the door swung open. And as a figure in blue medical scrubs stood in the door, she found herself staring at the face of Cromartie. His chilly eyes were locked right on her, and he had a dark shape in his hands that could only be a weapon. Cameron tensed to spring.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Cromatie shouted, raising the object, "back off, bitch." For whatever reason, Cameron stayed her hand. She glanced down at the weapon and realized that it was a cattle prod, one with enough voltage to knock her offline again. "You settle down, or I will use this," he assured her, his voice tinted with threat. Cameron could not help but be confused. The last time she had laid eyes on Cromartie, half of his face was missing. Sarah had shattered his chip with enough force to wreck a submachine gun. Yet here he was, in perfectly operational condition.

"You're dead," she told him, perhaps a small amount of her surprise leaked into her words.

"I know," he said to her smirkingly, "a church in some little town in Mexico." He gestured to his head, "half my face blown off. Buried in the desert next to a fence." He walked around her, and Cameron knew instinctively to stand still, "you tell me that every time I come in here. At least you have for the past six months."

Six months? Cameron could not remember being in this place any longer than since she had reactivated on the bed. But the way he gave her the amount of time, he had apparently known her and been dealing with her longer than even she was aware. Perhaps if she continued to play dumb, he would give her more information, and even let his guard down. "Six months?"

"Yeah," he nodded, "it never gets old. Now are you going to come along and play nice or am I going to have to give you the shock of your life?" Cameron was quiet for perhaps too long. She heard the prod crackle to life. Her olfactory sensors detected ozone. She immediately decided that compliance would be to her benefit.

"Okay," Cameron said, "but I don't know where to go. You'll have to lead the way."

Cromartie chuckled at her, "oh, no, missy. Nice try. Carter! Can you come in here a second? I need some help with Ms. Phillips."

The next figure to enter was the T-888 that Cameron had locked inside depot 37 over a year ago. His eyes were soft when they looked at her, and she noticed that he had a scar that ran down from his forehead, over his eye, and down his cheek. The scar was not old, maybe about a year based on its color. He shot Cromartie a quick glance before gazing back at Cameron. "Cameron, are you being trouble?" His voice was soft, and there was concern in it.

"Does the day end in Y," Cromartie sneered, "c'mon, her session's in five minutes."

"Just come on, Cameron," Carter cajoled, and he reached a hand for her shoulder. Just to remind him that she was not his friend, she jerked her body from his touch, but she walked out the door anyway.

As they walked down the cold, sterile hallway Carter led while Cromartie and his stun baton brought up the rear. Cameron noticed many different people walking by. All of them wore scrubs. Most were clad in white, like her, but several were in blue and had nametags. She tried to read names and barcodes, but the zoom function of her ocular sensors was not functioning properly at all.

Cromartie, obviously a professional antagonist, began talking about Cameron like she wasn't walking between them. "Carter, I don't know why you're so soft on this one. Especially not after she cut your face and locked you in a broom closet."

Carter let out a sigh, and Cameron was beginning to realize that these two machines were behaving very much like men. "She had only been here a week, barely any treatment at all. She was scared and didn't know what was going on." Cameron still wasn't sure for that matter what was happening or why she was here, but she must have been for a lot longer than six months. As they passed a bulletin board, she glanced at a calendar on it. From the x-ed out days, she saw that it was Saturday, August 30, 2008.

"Same day," she said aloud. It was exactly the same day that she and the Connors had gone on the mission against the Kaliba front company. But it was morning, she could tell that by the light streaming in from the shatterproof windows.

_...And if you go chasing rabbits _

_and you know you're going to fall…_

"You shouldn't antagonize her," Carter replied, "maybe she wouldn't throw you around so much."

Cromartie snorted, "maybe I wouldn't antagonize her if she didn't throw me around so much." She felt a palm smack the back of her shoulder, "you hear me in there, Small Wonder? I ain't your punching bag."

They came up to a t-intersection in the hall, and Carter had to step around a slow-walking patient. As he did so, Cameron caught a glimpse of her from the back, a Caucasian female with long brown hair wearing only a pair of black combat boots. She turned the corner and Cameron tried to follow her with her eyes, but instead she found herself looking down a long empty corridor. She stopped, confused, and tried to determine where the woman had gone.

_…tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar_

_has given you the call…_

Cromartie gave her a rough shove forward. "Keep moving, princess."

"What's down that hallway," Cameron asked.

"Nothing you need to worry your head about right now," her rougher guard said, "just keep walking."

_…to call Alice when she was just small…_

Carter stopped at another door, using his ID badge to open it, and gestured for Cameron to enter.

"Doctor Silberman, we have your next patient," Cromartie said politely, urging Cameron forward with a gentle nudgeat the small of her back. She walked into the room, which was occupied with a bolted-down desk and a couple of chairs. Along one wall were some bookshelves with binders and medical journals. Behind the desk sat an older gentleman in a lab coat. He had a mop of silver hair, and his pale face was kindly.

"Come in, Cameron, come and sit down. It's time for us to talk." Cameron glanced at Cromartie, who only nodded as he pulled the door to behind him. She walked over to the metal writing desk and sat in the chair as she had been commanded. As she did so, her eyes scanned the desk, seeing only a few items; a decorative clock, a photo frame, a stapler, and a coffee mug that held pens, pencils, and other implements. Her eyes were drawn to the handle of a letter opener, the end of the handle formed into the head of a raven.

"How are you feeling today," she was asked gently.

"Fine," she replied.

"I see you aren't in restraints today," Silberman noticed, "that's good."

"Yes."

"That's what? Nineteenth day in a row you haven't needed them. That's progress."

"Yes," Cameron parroted, "that's progress."

Silberman scribbled on a notepad. "Is there anything you want to talk about today? Have you seen any of your… um… machines? Your terminators?"

Cameron shot a look over her shoulder at Cromartie, who simply stood guard by the door. He was certainly not behaving like a terminator. Her eyes went back to Silberman. "No," she answered, "I haven't seen any terminators."

"So they aren't after you?"

Cameron's lips pursed and her brow knitted. "They were never after me. They were after…"

"John," Silbermann interrupted, "right. But not lately."

"No," she replied earnestly. John had not been pursued by a machine for a few weeks now. The skin had melted from Tagwell's endoskeleton and so he would probably be spending a great deal of time sidetracked with repairs.

"About John," this question was asked very carefully, "how is he?"

Cameron tilted her head. Why would he be asking her about John? She had gone offline during their fight with the T-800 and had rebooted here. She did not know what John's status was. And she had been hoping that perhaps he could give her some answers.

She heard a sound from the corner of the room, and her head snapped towards it. The corner of the room was empty. Just as she was ready to chalk up the sound to a malfunction of her audio sensors, she heard the distinct sound of gunfire, three rounds, very distant in the other direction. And there was shouting, but she could not make out any words. She turned to search for it, but nothing was there. Silberman and Cromartie had no reactions to the noise, and it faded just as quickly as she had heard it.

Cameron looked up at the doctor. "Why am I here," she asked. She heard a muffled snort from Cromartie, and Silberman's face seemed to sink. She could see disappointment in his eyes.

She watched him sit back in his chair, take off his glasses, and rub the bridge of his nose with a free hand. He slid the spectacles back on and regarded her with an expression etched with pity and frustration. "Well, what do you remember?"

Cameron thought for a second, then said "I don't remember anything before waking up in my cell this morning." Silberman stared at her, his face less able to hide the emotions he was feeling.

"Ha! Crazy," Cromartie scoffed.

"Shut up," the doctor snapped. His eyes went back to Cameron. "Ms. Phillips… Cameron, you're here because the state of California put you here. You've been institutionalized as a criminal."

"A criminal? Why? I'm not a criminal?"

Silberman shook his head, "that remains to be seen. But the state thinks you need to remain here."

That wasn't an answer. "But why? Why was I committed to Pescadero?"

The doctor pursed his lips, and lowered his voice to a gentle tenor. "For the murders of John Connor and his mother Sarah."


	3. Chapter 3: Kick Against the Pricks

**Chaper 3: Kick Against the Pricks**

"That's impossible," Cameron protested, "I am supposed to protect John. I was…"

Silberman glanced through the file on his desk and came up with the answer just in time to interrupt her. "Sent from the year twenty twenty-seven by a future version of John Connor to protect him so that he can grow up and lead the human resistance against Skynet, an artificially intelligent computer system that seeks to annihilate the human race."

"Yes," Cameron confirmed, "my mission is to defend him. His mother had been visited in the year nineteen eighty-four by resistance member Kyle Reese to protect her from a terminator sent back to kill her before her son was born. She was even committed when she tried to warn the world about it. Committed here. _You_ were her psychiatrist."

Silberman dropped the file and leaned back in his chair. "Sarah Connor was a real estate agent, a perfectly sane single mother of a teenage son. Kyle Reese, a US Marine, had been her spouse until he died in a training accident. She resumed her maiden name and continued to raise her son alone. This boy, John, was a classmate of yours, one whom many witnesses have confirmed that you were infatuated with."

Cameron argued, "Sarah Connor trained her son to become a soldier, a great leader. I was his protector,"

Silberman interrupted again, "you were his girlfriend for nine weeks of his sophomore year of highschool. He broke up with you before summer break and started seeing another girl. I believe her name was Riley Dawson."

"Riley Dawson was a dangerous girl from the future sent back to sabotage his potential. She died. She was killed by…"

"She and her parents moved out of the state after you attacked her at school. John wouldn't reconcile with you and so you went to his house in a fit of rage and murdered him and his mother."

"No," Cameron's voice was forceful, "No. I would never. I was programmed to protect him. I did go bad once…"

"Shortly after he broke up with you, you assaulted him."

"It was because of a car bomb. My chip was damaged."

"Something in there is damaged alright," Cromartie laughed.

Silberman glared. "Robert, if you're going to stand there and make snide comments, then I ask that you go outside and send Jeff in. She can at least tolerate him."

"I don't like him either," Cameron corrected, "he hijacked a load of coltan and tried to store it away for use after Judgment Day. John and Sarah and I stole it back and locked him in Depot 37."

The doctor silenced her with another interruption, "you attacked Jeff Carter with a plastic dinner knife you sharpened and locked him in a utility closet for three hours in retaliation for him repairing your bed which you had dismantled in hopes of building a time machine. And even after that he is very patient with you. Though Robert, here, seems to be your favorite target."

Cromartie began to confirm "just last month, she mistook me for someone named Tagwell and pushed me into a wall."

"Go outside, Robert!" The offended attendant shook his head and walked out, jerking a thumb for Carter to replace him. Silberman sat down and continued talking to Cameron, leaning across the desk and looking at her in the face. For her part, Cameron only stared at her knees. "We had made such progress," he said to her, "just a few days ago, you were accepting that there was no Skynet, no machines. You had started a new medication. You were happy. It looks like we've suffered a setback."

"A setback?"

"Yes," Silberman nodded, "if you had continued to improve, I was going to have you sent to a lower security facility with better amenities." He sat back in his chair, "looks like that isn't going to happen. Not yet."

X

Cameron was escorted to the common room. Silberman had told her that she had been making friends, that visiting them always helped her. Cameron wasn't so sure. She could not recall anyone here that she knew, and even if her video playback was functioning, she was certain that it would only prove her right. But once again, compliance had its advantages. So long as Cameron was locked in her room, she would not be able to better familiarize herself with the hospital and plan for an escape.

Unlike the rest of the facility, the common room was in immaculate condition, and it became immediately obvious that patients were supposed to spend the majority of their time here instead of in their cells. The room was large and spacious, with tables set out for games, shelves of books and movies, and small lounges in the corners set up around television sets. As she walked in, she scanned the room and counted seventy patients busy with a variety of activities; watching a gameshow on one of the TVs, reading in a recliner, playing chess or Scrabble.

"Cameron," a woman's voice called to her. Cameron turned to see a woman walking up, having just vacated a seat at one of the tables. She was in her early thirties. Her blonde hair fell across the shoulders, and she had the tattoo of a cat's paw on the back of her hand. She was smiling, a big friendly grin that seemed to make the rest of her disappear behind it.

Cameron found that she immediately knew the woman's name. "Hello, Katie." She wasted little time in approaching the woman, who was eerily familiar, though Cameron had never seen her before.

"C'mon," Katie motioned, "Harry and Ben are at our usual table ready to play cards."

The female terminator was confused. "Cards?"

"Yes, dear," Katie grinned. Somehow, Cameron managed to remember that every Saturday she and these people played five card draw for two hours before lunch. But none of the other details were coming to her. "We saved your favorite seat here in the corner."

"We know how much you like to watch the room," said a man with a lapin face. He was English, and somehow she remembered that this was Harold March, and that he frequently took tea in the afternoon with Mister Maddigan, who was the only other Englishman at Pescadero. Harry smiled at her, his two front teeth white and visible beneath the luxurious brown mustache.

Cameron found herself suddenly bothered by the idea that she could remember details of these people's lives and just as quickly accept them as fact when, before today, she was equally certain that she had met none of them.

"Have a seat," gestured Ben Fischemann, a husky, satchel-mouthed man. He had the habit of pursing his lips and then popping them when he was thinking. Cameron took her seat as he asked. He asked that everyone buy in, and all four of them tossed in a white chip from the stacks in front of them. The deck of cards were in his hand, and he began dealing them out.

"Saturday," Harry said as he picked up his cards. "We get fish for lunch."

"You crazy fool," Katie chortled, "Friday is fish day. Saturday is steak night. Except for the vegans."

"Quite right, dear, quite right," Harry agreed.

Cameron analyzed her hand. A three of hearts, a queen of spades, a seven of clubs, and a nine and ten, both diamonds. A rubbish hand.

Ben popped his lips, gazing down his nose at the cards through the thick lenses of his glasses. "I'll get us started. Five. And he dropped a red chip."

"A red chip is ten," Harry insisted, "green chips are five."

"No," Katie corrected, "read the top. In this set, red chips are five. The yellow chips are ten. There are no green chips."

"What happened to the other set with the green chips?"

"They had to throw that set out," Katie reminded him, "you broke half of them when you decided to play against Pigeon. He called you a cheater and you two got in a scuffle. Stomped all over them. They were the nice Lucite ones, too."

"I don't like these chips," Harry groused.

"For God's sake, just throw in a red chip and be done with it," Katie fumed.

"Fine, then," and he tossed the requested chip in, as did Katie and Cameron. Katie smirked at her cards and raised the bet, and Harry folded.

"So you had a session today," Katie asked Cameron as Ben traded two cards.

"Yes." Cameron dropped a card and drew the queen of diamonds. She had a pair.

"How was that," Harry asked, "the last time we played you said something about a transfer?"

"To a lower security facility."

"Oh," Katie enthused, "how I wish my transfer paperwork would go through. I would be able to get visits from my little Carson." The two men at the table exchanged a depressed glance at the mention of Katie's son. "He'll be starting kindergarten this year. Gosh, they grow so fast. Seems like just yesterday I was giving him a bath in his baby tub." The memory brought another wide grin to her face, but the twinkle in her eyes faded and the grin became a grimace. She blinked heavily, then looked about. "Whose bet is it?"

"Cameron, I believe it's yours," Ben reminded. Cameron looked at her cards again and tossed in a ten chip. It was obvious that for a game played with fake money, no one was betting high. They weren't playing seriously. This was not a cutthroat Vegas poker championship. They were playing for each other's company.

The cards were called. Katie won this hand, which Harry sniffed about. But he had folded early and had no right to complain. They bought in once more, and Ben dealt the cards. Cameron received a king, a queen, a seven, a five, and a two, all of hearts.

_...and the white knight is talking backwards_

_ And the red queen's "off with her head"…_

A gunshot! Cameron's head snapped up towards the source of the sound. It was coming from the hallway. She listened for a little while longer, but there was no other sound from that direction. She began to reach down and arrange her cards…

_Cameron!_

She looked up again towards the door, her eyes wide and scanning. The voice calling her name had been John's, she was sure of it. It was urgently calling for her. But no one else heard it. No one else responded. Her eyes went to her companions at the table. They were looking at her expectantly.

"Cameron," Harry said, the tone of his voice indicating that this wasn't the first time he had called her name, "it's your bet."

"Oh," Cameron looked down at her stack of chips, grabbed a few, and tossed them into the pile on the center of the table. "Twenty-five." She shot one more glance at the door before returning her attention to the table. Harry raised, and they all complied with an answering bet. Time to show the cards. Cameron's flush won the hand over Harry's two pair.

They bought in again, and were dealt. Cameron's hand was worth nothing, but among her cards was the Ace of Spades. The logo in the middle bore a targeting circle exactly the same as what appeared on her HUD when it had functioned.

FIELD ENHANCEMENT: ON MAGNIFICATION: VAR WAVELENGTH 300-1000 MULTI: OFF MODE: BORESIGHT

1X TARGET: T-800

MAG ACTION: TERMINATE

270 280 290 300 310 315 320 325 330

Cameron tilted her head as the ghostly form of her HUD winked to life, superimposed in her vision. Her oculars went badly out of focus with a mechanical whine. Standard operating procedure from a runaway focus failure was to blink heavily, allowing the ocular sensors to refocus on the inside of the eyelids. This Cameron did, and in the darkness, the HUD went out again. A stunning white text readout cycled through her vision in a massive block of hex. Superimposed over the scrolling code blocks was a single simple warning.

WARNING: RAPID RESTART FAIL

CONTINUE STANDARD START SEQUENCE

This all occurred in the half-second that Cameron took to perform the heavy blink. As her eyes opened, the HUD and text blocks were gone. Normal vision had returned. She looked down at the worthless cards in her hand. The logo on the Ace of Spades had changed. There was no targeting sight present.

Confused, Cameron did not feel like playing cards anymore. "I fold," she announced just as Ben was making his bet. Her words surprised everyone at the table. "Excuse me," and she made to get up.

Harry looked up at her sorrowfully, "but we have only been playing for fifteen minutes. Our game is supposed to go for a couple of hours."

"I don't feel like playing," she made an excuse and laid her cards down face up.

Katie's hand caught hers. "Cameron, stay and play."

"I really think I should go back to my room."

"No, dear," Katie was firm, "you need to stay here and play with us. You shouldn't be by yourself. Not right now." The expression on her face convinced Cameron that perhaps she should stay. She sat down once more and resumed the game.

X

Katie kept Cameron company as they walked to the cafeteria. They weren't the only ones. Several of Pescadero's patients were flowing towards the call of food. As they walked, Katie would point out someone she knew and tell Cameron why they were here. Cameron found herself surprised at the number of internees here that were free to wander the hallways during certain hours of the day, in spite of the majoring of them being dangerous psychopaths with a history of violence. Yet all things considered, they would probably go crazier in their cells. Cameron was certain that if she were human, being stuck for most of her day in a six-by-ten foot room would degrade her mental faculties. Perhaps then she might even belong in here. As it was, she was a machine, and machines did not do so well in captivity either, especially if they were incapable of going into standby.

They passed by the hallway where she had seen the mystery girl disappear. Cameron's eyes looked down it once again. At the end was a set of double doors with unbreakable windows, but there was not signage to indicate what may be behind them or where they might lead. Katie saw her staring and put a hand to the small of her back. "No need to worry about that," she said reassuringly.

"What's down there," Cameron inquired, keeping her eyes glued to it as long as she could.

"Sometimes they take people in there," Katie said, her tone a warning, "they come back different."

"Different how?"

"Quieter," Katie said, "less likely to fuss." Her expression turned dour and serious, and she dipper her chin. It was obvious she didn't want to speak of it any longer.

Cameron was content to let the matter drop for now, so she returned her eyes to her course down the hallway. Walking against the general flow of traffic was a young woman. As she emerged from a gaggle of other patients ahead of them, Cameron recognized her as herself. She was the exact image of the machine, and her dark eyes locked with Cameron's own. The face was a placid mask, her gait mechanically precise, like a Lipizzaner. She wore white scrubs like all the other patients, but her feet were covered with a pair of heavy combat boots instead of medical slippers. Vexxed, Cameron watched her doppelganger walk by, passing behind Katie and continuing down the hall.

"Who is that," Cameron asked. Katie had been here for a while, ad it was obvious that she knew almost everyone.

"Who?"

"Her," Cameron pointed back to where her twin had gone. She found herself pointing at empty air. There was no one there. Katie had turned her head to look where Cameron was pointing, but embarrassingly, she had directed the woman to nothing. Her friend gave her a mirthful gaze. Cameron could only return a blank stare, doing her best to hide her confusion. Perhaps if she could maintain her mask, she could convince those around her that she was what she claimed to be.

It suddenly struck her as ironic. She was a machine whose sole function was to blend in with humans to terminate her target. She was an infiltrator. Copying and replicating human behavior was a primary function of her mission. It was a drive as strong as instinct, as easy to ignore as if her hair were on fire. Her inability to exactly parrot humans convincingly was as much a threat to her mission as a rampaging T-888. To continue to maintain a robotic and mechanical appearance was against her programming. But here in this place, Cameron needed them to believe that she was a machine, and perhaps they would release her. They would know… and it would be to the detriment of her secrecy. But it was going to be terribly hard to prove when half of her systems were not functioning.

X

That evening, Cameron was standing in the center of her cell, the events of the day flying through her datastream as she tried to make sense of it. She had somehow ended up in the institution on the same day that she and the Connors had broken into a Kaliba facility. Or at least, great pains had been taken to make her believe it. They obviously knew how to manipulate her systems. Her HUD was unavailable, her power outputs to her servos had been cut to decrease her strength, and she had no access to many of her internal sensors and systems. Even these people around her where doing their best to convince her that she had known them for a long time.

She had at least two T-888s to contend with. How they had managed to get a Carter skin model she wasn't sure, but Cromartie was a custom sheath. They must have dug him out of the desert and given him a new chip. As a matter of fact, Carter may have been the same unit responsible for stealing the coltan shipment. The scar must have been make-up of some kind. However, these two machines were excelling in their abilities to pass as human. Perhaps they were both in here to destroy her and the other humans didn't know it.

Cameron couldn't be certain. A lot of what she had seen today didn't make much sense. Especially the girl, the one that looked just like her. As far as Cameron knew, she had been unique in her biological jacket, but Skynet did possess the ability to make a production run of her. It did have Allison Young's genetic information. Cloning the skin, muscle, and eyes a thousand times was not beyond its ability. This girl must be another Allison Young model working for Kaliba. This whole place had to be a Kaliba front.

There was a wrap on the door. Cameron's brown eyes snapped up. Carter's face was looking at her through the window. He was smiling at her in a kind way, and he motioned for her to come closer. When she was standing at the door, he slid the receptacle open.

"Hands," he commanded gently. She put her arms trough the opening. He put a paper cup in one and something small in the other. She retracted them to find a cup of water and a few pills. She tried to analyze them analyze them with her dermal sensors, but was unable. She peered closer at the green one and read the name. Clozapine.

"That's your new one," Carter said reassuringly, "but we'll have to monitor you more closely. The side effects can be pretty serious sometimes."

"Side effects?"

"Seizures, bowel infarction, raised white cell count…"

"It won't work," Cameron said, "medications won't have any effect on me."

Carter sighed, "I know you're frustrated. We really thought the Resperidone would help you. Let's just try this for a while."

Cameron remembered that these drugs were normally prescribed for use against schizophrenia. The chemicals in them could not be rendered into anything useful, so she just stared down at the pills in her hand. The other two pills were vitamin tablets. AT least those would be usable.

"Come on, Cameron," Carter said to her, "down the hatch." Why was he being so kind to her? Perhaps it would be best if she obliged him. There might be violence if she refused. Now was not the time to fight. She downed each of the tablets with a swallow of water and handed the empty cup back. He smiled at her, "okay, good. Thank you for your cooperation." And he walked away

An hour later, the facility went to night lighting. Cameron stayed standing in her cell, trying to come up with a plan, and knowing that she had to escape soon. If she didn't, whatever it was that was coming would happen, and she couldn't do anything to stop it.


	4. Chapter 4: Written

**Chapter 4: Written**

Dawn came with Cameron in the same place. As a machine, she did not get tired, did not get sleepy. She had discovered rather quickly that night that she was not able to go into standby mode, either. That was yet one more malfunction that she would have to contend with. As it was, standing all night had left her internal gyro slightly out of balance. Her eyelids were controlled entirely by biological muscle, not mechanical servos, and the eyelids had become abnormally heavy and difficult to control. Further, she had no access to her diagnostic programs to calibrate these systems.

A sharp knock at the door brought her datastream back to collecting the data of now, and with a peek through her window, she saw Cromartie standing there, a glass of water and a small cup of pills. Cameron felt her eyes narrow, and her head tilted, but she knew what must be done. Obligingly, she slid the slot open and stuck her hands out, taking what he had for her.

"You didn't sleep," he said, matter-of-factly, a voice with no concern or care.

"I don't sleep," Cameron confirmed, not voicing the truth that he, as a machine, should know this. She swallowed the pills and drank the water.

"Medication keep you up?"

"The medication won't work on me."

"Well, you've only had your second dose," Cromartie said, "give it some time." He slid the slot closed and then opened the door, ensuring that it stayed between himself and her. "Breakfast. Go get it. You hardly touched anything yesterday." Cameron was perfectly willing to accept the freedom offered. The more she learned about this place, the better her chances would be that she could form a workable escape plan. The more compliant she was, the more likely that her keepers would reveal some kind of useful information to her, such as John's whereabouts. She walked out and let Cromartie shut the door behind her.

X

"Let me get this straight," Silberman said. Cameron was having another session that afternoon, in the same chair in front of the same desk. "The software is designed to terminate humans?"

"Yes," Cameron responded.

"And the hardware is designed to terminate humans."

"Yes."

Silberman's expression changed. Stunned confusion might be what Cameron would have called it had she ever taken her eyes off the letter opener on his desk. The yellow raven's eye had not stopped staring at her since she sat down, and Cameron was staring back in an effort to show that she was not intimidated.

"So," the doctor continued, "you actually admit that, if you were a cyborg, that it would be your primary purpose?"

Cameron knew she could readily correct him. She _was_ a cyborg. Terminating humans _was_ her primary purpose. "Yes."

"And yet you wonder why no one believes that you didn't kill John and Sarah Connor."

"But I didn't. That's not my mission."

"But they were humans."

"Yes," Cameron agreed, "they are humans."

"And you are designed to kill humans."

"I am."

Silberman's head sank into his hands. "You _can_ realize what you are saying."

"I do."

"That you are claiming to be a machine that is designed to take human lives yet did not take the human lives that you are charged with taking."

It suddenly registered in Cameron's head. She looked up at the flustered doctor. "I can see a certain irony in what I say."

There was a pregnant pause. This was apparently a conversation that the two of them had been through many times before. Indeed, Cameron's previous reactions must have been something to the order of acceptance about what she had said, what she had thought. But this time, because she knew the truth, this was not a door she could open. The logic was to paint her into a corner that she, knowing the truth, could not step out of.

"So, tell me about yesterday again." Silberman finally spoke, "you said you were hearing things again."

Cameron didn't know about _again_, but this was true. "Yes. Gunfire. And voices."

"The violence hardly surprises me," Silberman said, "given your obsessions."

Cameron tilted her head, "obsessions?"

"You were an avid reader of _Guns and Ammo_. Your favorite bible story is the Brothers of Nablus. You are well-studied in several martial arts. You even claim to be a machine whose purpose is to commit violence. So, no, Ms. Phillips, it hardly surprises me. Tell me about the voices."

Cameron could not access her playback, and even before she found herself here she had known discrepancies in it. But she recalled with perfect clarity what she had heard. "It was John. He was calling my name." And there was one more important detail. "It was urgent."

"Desperate."

"Yes."

"Do you think it could be the hallucination of a memory?"

"I don't understand."

"That you are remembering his last words to you? And that the gunfire involved… that it might be you remembering the truth."

Cameron thought about this for a moment. Time for more information. She had to ask something that… to even admit that she needed to ask this… it made her apprehensive. "How did they die?" She could not make eye contact when she spoke. "John and Sarah. How did they die?"

Silberman studied her face for a moment before answering. "They were shot to death. Four or five times each."

"Do you know the ballistics?"

"Excuse me?"

"The type of weapon involved?"

"I think it was a Glock 17. Hardly matters. That is a very common pistol." For Cameron, that detail was infinitely important. She may not be able to access her audio playback, and may not be able to demodulate the sound in realtime and analyze it against audio data, but she was certain that it was the very type of gun she had heard. And it was the last firearm she had held in her hand.

Still, Cameron knew what she was. She was a cybernetic organism, a machine, designed to be as much like a human as possible. Her mission was to protect John Connor and assist him in defeating or destroying Skynet. She had performed this mission continuously for thirty-four months starting with her capture, her _rescue_, and reprogramming in the year 2026, and her transportation to 1999 and 2007. She had crossed time voluntarily to perform her mission, which was one of the most important that any of the resistance machines could be given. Personal bodyguard of John Connor had been an honor competed for. And in spite of one malfunction that was not her fault, Cameron liked to believe that she had served loyally. She had done well in spite of all the obstacles presented to her, just as many of them from her own companions as from Skynet agencies. She had overcome just as many trust issues as she had enemy terminators, just as many conspiracies by her own charges as by those of her enemies. She had even overridden her own Skynet programming with her loyalty. She would never harm him. She would never betray him. She couldn't be bargained with. She couldn't be reasoned with. And she absolutely would not stop. Ever. He was her mission.

Lost in this, she failed to realize the hot, wet, salinated streams that had leaked from her eyes and established themselves on her cheeks.

X

"No luck," she and Katie were sitting in the common room watching, or pretending to watch, television. Cameron refused to respond to the statement. Katie shrugged, "that's why we're in here."

"I don't belong here," Cameron's voice was perhaps too monotone, "with crazy people. I don't want to be here."

Katie shook her head, "You can't help that. The State of California is certain of it. This is a madhouse, after all. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

Cameron did not bother to give Katie a glare. "How do you know I'm mad?"

"You must be. They wouldn't have put you here if you weren't." Cameron immediately recognized that her logic was faulty. Sarah Connor herself had been wrongly committed to Pescadero. There were many others through history that had been sent to prison innocently. But Cameron was not willing to argue the point, choosing instead to spend her time peacefully. No one liked an arguer, just like no one liked a nag.

The TV show was some science documentary. Cameron wasn't even certain of the channel, but the show was not presenting any information that was new to her. Katie had begun to drone on about her son, who was supposed to be attending a summer church camp. Her husband had apparently came to visit yesterday, though Cameron had no memory of it. She did not want to offend the other woman, but Cameron felt no purpose in remaining any longer. As she was about to stand up, Katie asked her "did they change your medication yesterday? They changed my prescriptions."

Cameron's eyes found her. She had not moved her eyes from the television. "Yes. To Clozapine."

"Oh well," Katie sighed, "one to make you larger, one to make you small. And the ones that mother gives you…" She stopped speaking, but Cameron couldn't help but stare at her, inquiry all over her face.

"The ones that mother gives you?"

Katie smiled and looked up at her, grinning broadly. "They don't do anything at all." After an awkward breath, the other woman returned her attention to the television. Cameron also gave the television one more glance before standing up. "I'm going out to the courtyard," she said. Cameron somehow knew there was a courtyard that they had access to, even though she had never really been out to it before. She even recalled how to get to this place that she had never been to. She shot one last glance at Katie's chair.

The chair was empty. In the space of time, two or three seconds, that she had looked away, her companion had managed to disappear. The terminator looked around the room to see where the woman had gone. Among others, she saw Harold March and Mr. Maddigan having tea in a corner. They caught her looking at them and raised their mugs, nodding to her. Cameron managed a half smile and made for the nearest door.

"Hey," someone shouted angrily, "hey!" She turned for the source of the voice and saw one of the other patients approaching her, accusation in his eyes and on his lips. He was pale, and his dark hair was cut so short that, combined with the stubble on his chin, it was indistinguishable from grime. She immediately recognized this person that she had never seen before as Pigeon. He advanced on her quickly and gave her a violent shove into a table. She stumbled over a chair and was sprawled out on the floor before she could regain her balance.

"You're a snake," he spat, pointing at her, "you ain't nothin' but a snake."

"I don't understand," she said as she sat up.

"You're lying. You just remember to keep yourself away from me. And keep your hands off my stuff."

"I haven't touch your stuff," Cameron gave him her best glare as she stood back up. He lunged at her, and before Cameron could stop herself she retreated from his grasp.

"You keep your damn hands away from my stuff. You lying little succubus! You little snake!"

A strong arm landed on Pigeon's shoulder. Cameron's eyes followed this restraining arm up to the round face and grey stubble of Vick Chamberlain. Cameron noticed that he was wearing the blue uniform of a security guard, and that he had a taser pistol at his hip. His icy eyes were set sternly on his quarry. "That's not a good idea, Pigeon."

Pigeon's anger melted, "Aw, Vick! Man, why don't you ever help me out here, man?"

Vick rolled his eyes and did not move his arm from the smaller man's shoulder, "I'm trying to help you out. What's the problem this time?"

"I'm just telling this little bitch to keep her hands off my stuff. She's always cheating me!"

Vick looked over at Cameron and winked, "Cameron here didn't cheat you out of anything, Pigeon. She didn't take any of your stuff."

"But…"

"I won't tell you again," Vick growled, "you'll leave her alone. You never learn, do you? The last time you went shoving her around, she laid you out. Hell, she got the drop on me once. And if she can take me, she can sure as hell take you."

"But…" It was obvious to Pigeon that he wasn't getting anything out of this exchange. His eyes sank to the floor, "okay, goddamnit, I'll let her alone." And he shuffled away.

Vick watched him walk off, then returned his attention to Cameron. "Did he hurt you?"

Cameron became aware that her jaw was hanging slack, so she shut it and dipped her head before answering. "No. He didn't hurt me."

"Are you sure? He hit you pretty hard."

"I'm sure," Cameron told him. "I'm fine. I was just going outside." Vick nodded, content to let her be, and let her go on her way.

X

After hardly touching her dinner, Cameron had some time left before she was required to return to her cell. She went to the common room and made for the library shelving. Part of this movement was to test her ability to move about the facility freely. Indeed, most of the patients, excepting the extremely violent ones, were permitted to go where they liked after breakfast and before bed. And there weren't many places that were restricted. This discovery, Cameron found, was not a discovery at all. From somewhere in a past that she could not possibly have experienced, she already remembered this to be true.

She wanted a reference book, perhaps a scientific publication, or maybe even something about dance. The organizational signs were posted on the ends of the shelves, like a library or a book store. Cameron's eyes flitted up to read them… Wait, the signs weren't words at all. They were icons. Skynet memory categorization icons. Cameron snatched the nearest volume and opened it to a random page.

22:54:68:65:20:73:75:6e:20:77:61:73:20:73:

68:69:6e:69:6e:67:20:6f:6e:20:74:68:65:20:

73:65:61:2c:1f:20:20:20:20:20:20:53:68:69:

6e:69:6e:67:20:77:69:74:68:20:61:6c:6c:20:

68:69:73:20:6d:69:67:68:74:3a:1f:48:65:20:

64:69:64:20:68:69:73:20:76:65:72:79:20:62:

65:73:74:20:74:6f:20:6d:61:6b:65:1f:20:20:

20:20:20:20:54:68:65:20:62:69:6c:6c:6f:77:

73:20:73:6d:6f:6f:74:68:20:61:6e:64:20:62:

72:69:67:68:74:20:1f:1f:41:6e:64:20:74:68:

69:73:20:77:61:73:20:6f:64:64:2c:20:62:65:

63:61:75:73:65:20:69:74:20:77:61:73:1f:20:

20:20:20:20:20:54:68:65:20:6d:69:64:64:6c:

65:20:6f:66:20:74:68:65:20:6e:69:67:68:74:

2e:1f:1f:54:68:65:20:6d:6f:6f:6e:20:77:61:

73:20:73:68:69:6e:69:6e:67:20:73:75:6c:6b:

69:6c:79:2c:1f:20:20:20:20:20:20:42:65:63:

61:75:73:65:20:73:68:65:20:74:68:6f:75:67:

68:74:20:74:68:65:20:73:75:6e:1f:48:61:64:

20:67:6f:74:20:6e:6f:20:62:75:73:69:6e:65:

73:73:20:74:6f:20:62:65:20:74:68:65:72:65:

1f:20:20:20:20:20:20:41:66:74:65:72:20:74:

68:65:20:64:61:79:20:77:61:73:20:64:6f:6e:

65:20:1f:1f:22:49:74:27:73:20:76:65:72:79:

The entire page was nothing but hexadecimal code. She flipped the page over. The next page was the same way, just columns of hexadecimal. The entire book… the _entire_ _book_ was filled from cover to cover with hex. Cameron put the book down and grabbed another. Inside, she discovered the very same thing! Same was true with another book, and another. The entire library was nothing but hexadecimal. Even more strangely, Cameron could actually read the columns. These were not novels, history books, or encyclopedias. These were recorded memories, weapons readouts, and chassis user interface. All of the books in these stacks were just her existing code and compiled knowledge. There was nothing new here.

X

"Can you explain this," Cameron had gotten one of the orderlies to call in Doctor Silberman. She landed three of the selected books on the table with a violence that she had never known. "What are these?" She picked them up each in turn and flipped them open so that the pages might spill out. "Hex code! Hex code! _Hex code!_ These aren't books! I know all of this stuff," she picked on up, "this is the memory if getting my first diamond," and another, "this one is about how to operate a nineteen fifty-eight Edsel Ranger with a TeleTouch transmission," and another, "and this one is a list of servo calibrations for use in Vaganova ballet. Can you explain this?"

Silberman smirked at her and picked up one of the books. He looked at the cover, adjusted his glasses, and then smiled condescendingly. Opening the book, he picked a random page and began to read. " 'Would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, 'why are you painting those roses.'

"Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice 'Why the fact is, you see, Miss, there ought to have been a _red_ rose tree, but we put in a white one by mistake.'

"Cameron, this is a Lewis Carroll," he sneered impatiently, slapping the book back down on the table. The volume slid across the table and thumped against Cameron's thigh. She stared down at the book, and sure enough, Silberman was right. She picked up the book and opened it. There was no hexadecimal. It was the text from the classic novel. Cameron was going to point out the category signs that were Skynet icons, but as she turned to do so, she saw that the signs were in fact the correct English words. She turned back to find Silberman already walking away.

Cameron was vexed. She knew what she had seen. But yet there was no evidence to corroborate it. And what had just happened between her and Silberman; that was an outburst, an emotional outburst. It was not something that a logical machine such as herself should be having. The behavior had been much more akin to what one would expect out of a human… a teenage human girl with some kind of hallucinatory mental disorder. And Cameron was _not_ one of these. She remembered.

Dutifully, she put each of the books back where it belonged and walked out of the common room to her cell. She needed to get out of here. Nothing was making sense.

She collided with something in the middle of the hallway and looked up to see Cromartie's stern face glaring down at her. His blue eyes were full of ire. "Hex code? Really?" He grabbed and arm and pulled her down the hallway. "I am really getting enough of your crazy, Small Wonder."

Cameron tried to pull away from him, but she lacked the strength to get loose. He tightened his grip on her bicep, squeezing his thumb into her slender arm. She was not able to deny the pain she felt, pain that she should not be able to feel, but she was not going to give him the satisfaction of crying out. He dragged her all the way to her room, opened the door, and shoved her inside. Cameron stumbled in, landing hard on the floor. The door slammed behind her, locking her in. She stood slowly, turning to face the door. Outside, it began to rain. The drops of water splashed against her window, running down in rivulets. Light from an outside lamp shone its glow into her darkened cell, projecting a shadow of the rain on Cameron's face.


	5. Chapter 5: Crossing the River

**Chapter 5: Crossing the River**

Another night spent waiting for the dawn to come. Cameron estimated that the weight of her biological eyelids was now twice what it should be. It was very difficult to keep her eyes open. She had to resist the urge to close them. She had been once more unable to go to standby mode. And her internal chronometer was still not functioning, along with many of her other systems. After an indeterminable amount of time, the rain stopped and she resumed pacing across the floor, back and forth, in her mechanical dressage stride. By the time Carter came to give her the morning round of pills, she was finding it difficult to route power to her servos. Her steps had become more difficult with every passing hour. Combined with the heaviness of her eyelids, continued operation was becoming difficult. Her malfunctions now included fatigue indicators in all of her limbs, an uncontrolled tremor in her left hand, gyroscopic irregularities, swelling of her periorbital skin, and a pulsing damage indicator in her right temple where there was no damage. None of these various issues were available for repair and her built-in test mode was inaccessible… just like every other damn system she relied on to function in her capacity as a machine.

"Trouble sleeping," Cater asked as he passed her the water and medicines.

Cameron glared at him, "I don't sleep." Her tone was distinctly irascible, and Cameron found that she lacked any motivation to control it. Whatever they had done to her, whatever they were doing, it had profoundly impacted her ability to… everything. Well, add another thing to the growing list of problems she was suffering. Her processor was taking more time to do less work. As a simple test, she ran through a multiplication table, but by the time she was at three-times-four she realized that she had no internal chronometer to time with and measure against a baseline.

"Is it the medication keeping you awake?"

Cameron swallowed the water, which was cold and soothed a tactile dryness indicator in her biological throat. She stared at the cup for a moment. More would be useful. "I _don't_ sleep," she told him, passing the empty paper cup back through the slot in the door. Her eyes were hard when they met his, and she became aware of the fact that her jaw was trembling and she couldn't stop it.

"Cameron, you look exhausted," Carter told her, "please, just lie down for a little while. I'm sure you'll feel better."

Her mouth formed a sneer, "I. Don't. Sleep."

"Fine," Carter said, holding his hand up, "have it your way. But the last time you started doing this, things didn't go so well."

Cameron was a machine, and machines could be very patient when they needed to be. But even machine patience wore thin, and when this occurred, they were just as liable as a human to respond to a situation with more force than was absolutely required. "You don't know me. I've never been here before. I don't understand why you people keep insisting that I have been here for so long when I know that I haven't. I know what you are. The others may not know, but I know. You can't hide it from me. I've seen you."

Carter let out a long sigh, "I'll bring you some breakfast. You have a session with the doc in an hour. We'll get you some clean sheets while you're there. I'm sure you're tired of sleeping on that menstrual stain now that…" it was obvious that he was trying not to say something awkward, "…um …_it's_ over." And he walked away.

It took Cameron a few extra seconds to completely understand what he had said. She walked over to the bed and threw the blanket back. Right in the middle of the sheet was the brown splotch of the bloody stain that she had seen when she first awakened here. It was perhaps four days old judging from the color. Its location was consistent with… no, ridiculous. "I don't menstruate," she said aloud. No one was there to hear her, but for some reason she found the fact reinforced by her words.

X

"Ink blot," Cameron stated.

"And this?" Silberman held up card III, the two interacting men.

"Ink blot."

"This?" Card IV, the father.

"Ink blot."

"And this one?" Card V, the bat.

"Another ink blot."

Silberman slapped the cards down and made a frustrated grumble. "C'mon, Cameron, you're not doing this right."

"The Rorschach technique is a test of psychological interpretation used to examine personality characteristics and emotional functions, and discover thought disorders."

"Yes."

"I am perceiving these images to be ink blots," Cameron gave a slight shake of the head, "is this wrong of me to say?"

"You're saying what they are."

"I am," she nodded, "they are ink blots."

"Yes," Silberman agreed, "but you are supposed to be telling me what they remind you of. Not what they are."

"They remind me of ink blots. Are they not supposed to? Perhaps the artist isn't very good."

"No…"

"No, the artist isn't good? That would explain a great many things. Like why they resemble ink blots so easily."

"No, Cameron, that's not…"

"Or maybe the artist intended them to be random blots of ink and your efforts at interpreting them are fruitless."

"Cameron, really…"

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Silberman was obviously losing patience, which Cameron considered a victory for herself. He nodded impatiently and smiled condescendingly. "Freud. Very good. Clever." He was being sarcastic.

Cameron smiled sweetly, "thank you."

"You're supposed to use your imagination."

Cameron could have very easily just given in at this point, but, she decided, aggravating the doctor was on her schedule for the day. "You are familiar with the Beatles?"

Silberman threw up his hands, "what the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"You know. The Beatles. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George…"

"…Harrison, and Ringo Starr. Yes, I know who the Beatles are."

"I think I'll go with Ringo Starr as an answer."

"How is Ringo Starr an answer?"

"I don't have an imagination," Cameron delivered in her best Liverpool. Silberman's eyes narrowed, confused. Cameron explained, "as said by Ringo Starr in _Yellow Submarine_, the psychedelic nineteen sixty-eight animated film. Blue Meanies, Apple Bonkers, Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph. D."

"I know the movie, Cameron!"

"Ringo Starr says it to the cop when he is challenged about being followed by the yellow submarine," Cameron prompted with her eyebrows, "I'm a machine. I don't have an imagination."

"You're not a machine," Silberman screamed, "you're a person! Just do the damned test! You're driving me crazy!"

"Maybe you should see a therapist."

Cameron's eyes must have been gleaming as she watched Silberman's head sink into his hands. He sat there for a while, taking some deep, calming breaths. His hands finally went to the cards and he put them back in order, opened his desk drawer, threw them back in, and slammed the drawer shut. "Okay," he said, trying to stay civil, "forget the test. Carter said you told him that the Clozapine is keeping you awake."

"I didn't say that," she corrected, "I said that I don't sleep."

"It is pretty obvious that you haven't been sleeping. What do you mean, you don't sleep?"

"I'm a machine," Cameron reminded, "we have no need for rest."

Silberman must have decided to play along on this one, "what do you do when you aren't… doing anything?"

"You mean performing mission related activities?"

"Yes… that."

"We go into standby mode."

"And standby mode," he prompted with his hands, "it's… what, exactly?"

Cornered. "Like sleep."

"Like sleep. Why don't you just go into standby at night? Don't you get bored and tired just standing there all night?"

"No," Cameron explained, "I'm a machine. I don't get bored or tired."

"What do you do? You just stand there and think about stuff?"

"No," Cameron realized that she was lying. Over the past several months she had spent a great deal of computational cycles processing concepts that did not have anything to do with her mission. PetaFLOPS of wasted datastream, irretrievable processor bandwidth, all to contemplate… herself, her being, her ontological identity. Wasted, useless, distracting concepts that she had neither time nor need for. Hiding it would not serve her at all, and so she decided to tell the truth. "Yes. Many things."

"Like what?"

"Like who I am, what I am, where I belong, what the past means, what the future holds, how I fit into it all," she looked up at him, "I don't know any of these things. I don't have the answers. Right now I have a mission…"

"A mission?"

"Protect John Connor. Destroy Skynet. Everything I do, all of my focus, should be on securing these two objectives."

"And it isn't?"

"Sometimes it seems like I do things that aren't, and I have no idea why."

"Like what?"

"I dance. I am an infiltrator. I am programmed to be as human as possible. Humans enjoy dance. So I dance."

"That seems like it satisfies a mission requirement, to be as human as you can be."

"Yes. But it is immediately irrelevant to anything that I do."

"Practice makes perfect."

"I'm a machine. I don't need to practice. Once my servos are calibrated properly, then the movements will be as natural to me as it would be to someone who has spent decades dancing. I do it when I don't have to."

"What else do you do? In your quest to destroy Skynet. Didn't Skynet originally program you?"

"Yes. I was reprogrammed by the resistance. I rebelled."

Cameron became aware that Silberman was taking notes. "And you continue to rebel?"

"Yes. I do everything I can to hurt Skynet."

"Skynet would want you to be a perfect machine?"

"Yes."

"And yet, you aren't a perfect machine are you?"

"No."

"But it harms Skynet that you are a less than perfect machine, doesn't it?"

Cameron stared down at her hands, now folded in her lap. "I don't know. To be perfect is to not make mistakes. To be perfect is to not waste time on irrelevant things. But being perfect is not doing everything I can do to damage Skynet."

"And what about protecting John? What do you do to protect him?"

"Guard the house, look out for his safety, help him fight."

"Anything else?"

Cameron was quiet. She looked away, to the corner of the room. She wasn't sure what Silberman was asking. The answer she had given was inadequate. She did do a great deal more, but this amount of information should have been sufficient. "In order to protect him, wouldn't you need to keep him by you at all times?"

"Yes."

"And it wouldn't do any good if you just forced him to be with you."

"No."

"So what do you do? Do you cook for him? Do the laundry?"

"No."

"Then what?"

"I try to be his friend."

"So you care about him?"

"No." A machine did not feel emotions and could not care about anything. But his safety and security was her mission, her primary and most important concern. "Yes!" But she was a machine that couldn't feel. It was just a mission. "No."

"Why are you so conflicted?"

"Machines don't feel attachment to anything or anyone. We have our directives. That is all."

"But in order to satisfy this directive…" he was leading her, obviously. But his logic was impeccable.

"I need to care about him. If I do, then I will try harder to keep him safe. But I'm a machine. I can't care."

"Really? Do you care about him?"

"He's my mission."

"But do you care?"

"He's. My. Mission."

Silberman tried a different tack. "And, as a machine, what is your mission to you?"

"Everything."

"So you _do_ care?"

"Yes," Cameron admitted, "very much."

"Very much? But Machines don't care, do they?"

"No."

"Machines don't have feelings, do they?"

"They shouldn't."

"And you have feelings?"

This was true. Cameron had feelings. Cameron had possessed the feelings all along. "Yes."

"And yet," Silberman said, painting his last stroke to block Cameron into the corner, "you do. Which can only mean that you _are not_ a machine."

X

The grass in the courtyard was wet, but Cameron wasn't bothered by it. She tossed off her slippers and walked across the lawn, just to feel the damp grass underneath her feet. With Cameron, it had always been the simple things that she took pleasure in; the wind blowing through her hair, the smell of a leather jacket, the sound of a piano. Cameron didn't get to be barefoot very often, but this was one of her guiltiest pleasures. Sometimes when she was alone at night at home, patrolling, she would take her boots off and walk about the house in her bare feet. She had started doing it when she realized that she could be stealthier, but quickly discovered that she enjoyed being shoeless. It was… liberating.

The night rains had left the courtyard looking cleaner. The fresh air was a welcome change from the medicated and sterile smells of the hospital. Or at least it could have been. The courtyard was where the nicotine-addicted patients and staffers went to indulge. Cameron had come to expect that there would probably be at least six and as many as fifteen smokers happily puffing away, poisoning their bodies. The smoke gave Cameron's eyes a stinging sensation, an indicator of potential damage. At least if her HUD wouldn't activate to display failures, she still had her dermal tactile sensors to give her certain indications through "pain" reception. She, too, had smoked some time ago when infiltrating the US Navy air station in Oceana Virginia. She had used the persona of Erin Parker, a Lieutenant J.G. with Naval Intelligence that had been attached to a fighter squadron there. Parker had been a smoker, and so Cameron, playing Parker, had partaken of cigarettes. She remembered distinctly that every time she smoked one, her HUD warned her about pollution in her air intakes that inhibited proper oxygen transferral and damaged the efficiency of her cybernetic lungs.

But as irritating as it was, as much as she wanted to warn those around her that they were slowly killing themselves, she did not allow it to interrupt her enjoyment of the now. The grass between her toes was cool and damp, the breeze in her hair was soft, the faint scent wafting in from the neighboring field of oleander was sweet. Oleander, Cameron had discovered in the past several weeks since her return from the Virginia mission, was her favorite flower. That she had a favorite flower was stunning enough. But it became even more so when she found that Allison Young, whose personality and physical appearance provided the basis for hers, had possessed a distinct dislike of oleander. Cameron clearly remembered the discovery. She had only been awake from her maintenance cycle for three hours as they pulled into the driveway of the house. Wordlessly, she had stepped out of the car, which coincided with a deep breath through her nose, a simple secondary scan using her olfactory sensors to detect chemical dangers. She had found none, but the scent of the oleander shrubs in the garden had carried. Cameron found it pleasant. In spite of its dangerous properties, the pink flower reminded her of safety.

Cameron knew, as she stood on the grass and let it dampen the soles of her feet, let the breeze rustle her wavy brown hair, that she should be trying to escape, trying to figure out what had actually happened to John and Sarah. And maybe even find a little time to give Derek some consideration. But her first thought was John and maybe Sarah. She just had not had a very good opportunity to break her way out of here. Ordinarily, it would not have been a problem to just kick open her cell door and march out, throwing aside everyone who got in her way. But they had obviously deactivated half her systems and dialed back her servo outputs to levels consistent with a hundred-fifteen-pound waifish human girl that Cameron was supposed to portray. She couldn't make her way out of here on brute force. She would have to think her way out. And she needed to do it soon. The feeling that something important was about to happen had not gone away. Indeed, she felt as if she were hurtling towards the inevitable. She was not sure why, but she knew that she only had a couple more days at most to get out before whatever was coming happened. Then, it would be too late. She was not sure what it was, only that it was the end of something, and that she needed to act before her time ran out. But with these… whoever they were… doing their best to convince her that she was merely human and a malfunctioning one at that, she was not certain how she could manage. A couple of days was not very much time at all. Not with locked steel doors and armed guards actually proving an inhibition to her escape.

A peculiar doubt began to eat at Cameron. The ghostly emotions she had felt just days ago, when she knew she was a cyborg, were present here also. Her strength had been sapped. Her systems had failed her… what if Silberman was right all along? What if she _were_ human, just some crazy stuck in an institution for murdering a classmate? Certainly she would remember, though. Certainly she would recall what they presented to her as facts. Cameron was aware, too, that she had memories of living here, knowledge of being in this place that she could not reconcile with what she _knew_ to be the truth. Somehow they must have given her this knowledge, programmed these memories into her. They didn't seem any more real than the memories of her life as a cybernetic organism. If she were human, she would have said that the memories of Pescadero were more like remembering dreams, but Cameron had never dreamt, and never slept, and so could not make this correlation. She did know a great deal about human psychiatric issues, and was aware that delusions could present themselves in any number of ways. Humans could hallucinate, delusions could replace real memories. The human brain would often do this to protect the victim from something terrible, something that they could not accept and survive. Cameron might agree that she was experiencing this phenomenon, that the death of John Connor at her hand, given how she apparently felt about him, had been so traumatic that she was choosing to replace it with something positive or at least remember it in such a way that it wasn't her fault. But there was one primary problem with that hypothesis. Cameron _was not human_!

"Who are you," a voice asked. The voice was deep and slow-talking, placing emphasis on every word. The question was aimed at her. Cameron turned to see a man, a fellow patient, staring at her with a cigarette in his mouth. He inhaled and blew a smoke ring at her face. "Who are _you_?"

Cameron wasn't certain that she understood the query.

49:1f:49:20:68:61:72:64:6c:79:20:6b:6e:6f:77:2c:20:73:69:72:2c:20:6a:75:73:74:20:61:74:20:70:72:65:73:65:6e:74:1f:61:74:20:6c:65:61:73:74:20:49:20:6b:6e:6f:77:20:77:68:6f:20:49:20:57:41:53:20:77:68:65:6e:20:49:20:67:6f:74:20:75:70:20:74:

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"I…," Cameron began to answer as she became aware of the scrolling hex code. Not as if she were seeing, but as if she were remembering. As if she were hearing it. As if it was coming out of her when she spoke. "I'm hardly sure right now. I know who I was before I woke up here," she shook her head, her brown eyes finding the sidewalk, "but I think things have changed so much since then."

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"What is that supposed to mean," the man inquired before taking a long drag on the cigarette. "Explain."

Cameron could no more tell this person the truth about herself that she could the doctors. Not do it and sound sane. "I can't explain _myself_, I'm afraid," she said shyly, "I'm not myself."

49:20:63:61:6e:27:74:20:65:78:70:6c:61:69:6e:20:4d:59:53:45:4c:46:2c:20:49:27:6d:20:61:66:72:61:69:64:2c:20:73:69:72:2c:20:62:65:63:61:75:73:65:20:49:27:6d:20:6e:6f:74:20:6d:79:73:65:6c:66:2c:20:79:6f:75:20:73:65:65:2e

"I don't understand," said the other patient.

49:20:64:6f:6e:27:74:20:73:65:65:2e

"I can't say any more," Cameron answered as patiently as she could, "I don't understand it myself."

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He puffed on his cigarette again. "Who are _you_?"

57:68:6f:20:61:72:65:20:59:4f:55:3f

Cameron was going to answer when movement caught her eye. She looked up and saw the doppelganger, her shadow and clone, marching in precise step across the yard. She was wearing a pair of black combat boots and a dark blue jumpsuit. Her eyes were narrow, her face was stern. Cameron watched her twin's perfect pace as it took her to the door which Cameron had just come through some minutes before. She opened it, throwing a hard glare at Cameron before she disappeared through it. "I'm me," Cameron said insistently before she, too, marched across the grass for the door. She grasped the bar handle and flung it wide, expecting to see the mirror image just inside. The girl, the other Cameron, was gone.

X

The remainder of the day was uneventful. But by lights out Cameron began to detect a serious problem. Her vestibular gyro, the series of fluid-filled tubes in her skull that gave her a sense of balance and a contributed to her spatial awareness, was suffering a major failure. The gyro had been slowly degrading for the past day, and now Cameron had to spend a lot of her processing power recalculating her own balance, though it was easier to just do it through trial and error. Her steps were unsteady and she had to occasionally plant hands on the wall to stay upright. She knew what was really happening. They were trying to get her to lie down, to prove for whatever sick reason that she was not what she claimed. Introducing a human condition like dizziness would not deter her. In fact, of everything they had done to her, every item could be explained away as system trouble. She had not shown one issue that was not satisfactorily explained by hardware degradation and software lock-outs. The palsy in her hands and jerkiness of her movements was just servo malfunctions. The unsteadiness of her body was because of a gyro failure. The heaviness of her limbs and eyelids were because of output reductions. None of these things occurred because of exhaustion. They, whoever _they_ were, for whatever reason they wanted her to believe she was just a girl. She was a cyborg. She did not get tired. She did not get dizzy. She did not need sleep. And she _was not paranoid_!

Carter had insisted that she just lie down in the bed and try to get some sleep. He was answered with a glare, because Cameron felt no need to remind him again that she didn't sleep and forming the sentence was going to be far too much work anyway. He did not press the issue and she was satisfied that he had perhaps taken her seriously. She resumed standing in her cell, waiting for the day to come. It was more difficult than it had been. She felt her body swaying unsteadily and had to occasionally take a stumbling step to correct. She would have started pacing, but walking was difficult enough. She didn't need to help _their_ cause, help _them_ do whatever they were trying to do, by falling flat on her face because she was weary.

Not. Paranoid.

Somehow, try as she might, Cameron could not recall where the entrance to the facility was. The courtyard was surrounded on all sides, and the windows were barred too narrowly for her to break though them. The perimeter was double-fenced with the outer fence electrified and the inner one capped with concertina wire. And from what she had seen, the guard towers at the corners were equipped with active denial systems. The heat ray was non-lethal, but it could put even her cybernetic body on the fritz. The guards also possessed scoped rifles, which Cameron was able to identify in her rare glimpses as Pneu-Dart 389 Projector Rifles. These would fire ballistic syringes loaded with a paralytic agent such as Azaperone or Midazolam. Cameron's machine parts would be unaffected, but it was possible for a drug introduced into her dermal layer to be distributed by her bionutrient circulation to the rest of her biological jacket, paralyzing the cloned muscle tissue and causing the covering to become more of a hindrance. Standard procedure for loss of the tissue's utility was to shed it, and while Cameron was a dedicated machine, she had become attached to her current appearance. With great difficulty and effort she might be able to grow herself a replacement skin, and while she was advanced enough that she wouldn't need to have surgery to regain her look, it was not an effort she could afford to make. Shedding her flesh would be a short-term solution. Stealth would have to be her friend, and she couldn't be stealthy if she didn't know where the damn door was!

She needed… she needed to figure out if there was some way to get to the roof, some way that didn't involve any overtness…

"_Cameron?"_

Her head snapped up. John's voice?

"_How much longer?"_

Sarah?

_"I don't know. Maybe a minute."_

_ "We don't have a minute."_

"John?!" Cameron called, turning about in her cell to search for the source of the voices, which always sounded like they were coming from behind her.

_"We should just leave her."_ This was Derek's voice, _"she'll be fine. That T will figure out where we are any moment now."_

"No," Cameron said aloud, "Don't leave me!" She swung back around again. The door of her cell was open, the hallway outside was dark. They must be out there. Cameron walked out, her bare feet smacking the tile. "John, wait! Don't leave me here!" In her urgency, her walk became a jog, and her jog became a run. Given her gyro malfunction, the pace was unsteady and her footfalls were unsure. She tumbled, falling hard on her face. Pushing herself up was difficult. She lurched and staggered to her feet, resuming her stumbling run down the hallway which seemed to stretch on forever into the darkness.

_When the men on the chessboard_

_ get up and tell you where to go_

"John," she called, desperation in her voice. She rounded the corner of the nurse's station, which was unmanned, and slipped, skidding hard into the wall and knocking into the bulletin board.

_And you've just had some kind of mushroom_

_ And your mind is moving low_

Sheets of paper rained around her like dead leaves shaken from a tree, but she pushed herself off the wall and continued to stumble after the voices that she no longer heard. There was a gap in the wall coming up. It was the hallway that she kept passing, the one that Katie warned her about.

_Go ask Alice_

_ I think she'll know!_

She stood there, leaning against the corner, staring down it at the double doors at the end. She knew that whatever she needed to know, it was down this hallway, beyond those doors. She had to go through them.

_When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead_

_ And the white knight is talking backwards_

_ And the red queen's 'off with her head'_

Cameron adjusted her stance, bracing herself to charge down the hallway, to the freedom that must be waiting beyond. She felt something under her left foot and looked down to see what it was.

_REMEMBER WHAT THE DORMOUSE SAID!_

Her eyes met the long black form of a raven's feather. She reached down and picked it up, grasping the shaft so that the vane stood out of her fist.

_FEED YOUR HEAD!_

_ FEED YOUR HEAD!_

Her brown eyes peered curiously at the plume, taking in the smooth shape of the vane, the gentle curve of the rachis. Not a barb was out of place. She wondered where it came from. There was no way it could have blown in from the outside. After a couple of blinks, she asked "why _is _a raven like a writing desk? Is it that they both have quills? Is there even an answer?"

"How in the hell did she get that?!" An alarmed voice shouted. She looked up at the source of it. It was Dr. Silberman. He was standing a good few paces away from her. Cameron suddenly realized that she was surrounded by hospital staff, all well outside of arm's reach. Cromartie and Vick Chamberlain were among them.

"I don't know," Cromartie snapped an answer, then to Cameron, "just put it down, Cameron, just do it gently."

"I would drop it," Vic said, his taser pistol trained on her. "Don't be stupid, kid." Why all this fuss over a feather? It was just a dumb feather anyway. Cameron looked back down at it and her eyes went wide. She held a butcher knife in her hand.

"How did she even get out of her cell," one of the nurses asked. They were all speaking to her in various tones; beseeching her, threatening her, begging her to just calm down and put down the knife. Cameron looked from face to face, not realizing that as her head jerked her arm swayed and swung the weapon in what any sane person might view as an intimidating and aggressive manner. Cameron wasn't even sure how she had come into possession of the knife. It would have had to come from the kitchen, and she didn't have access to the kitchen. And that didn't make any sense, anyway. It was just a feather that she found on the floor! And how was it day time already?!

Cameron suddenly realized that she possessed in her hand the very object that would provide her freedom. She couldn't attack anyone with it. Vic's taser would have her quivering on the ground before she could take a second step. But there was one thing she could do with it, one thing that would prove to them once and for all that her claims were true, that she wasn't crazy. That beneath this soft biological skin lurked a hyper alloy combat chassis, a metal skeleton made for combat. She leveled her gaze confidently at Silberman. "I can prove it to you."

Silberman's head tilted. "Prove what?"

"That I'm a machine."

The doctor held up his hand to silence everyone. "Are you sure you want to do that, Cameron?"

Cameron was already formulating how she would accomplish it. She would open the sheath on her left arm and show them the metal bones underneath. "Yes," she said confidently, "I'm sure."

Silberman gestured flatly, "Okay, Cameron," his tone was wry, "if you're sure, go right ahead." Cameron was certain, so she hooked a finger into the sleeve of her hospital scrubs and pulled it down to reveal her forearm. As she pulled the white cloth down to her elbow, she was confronted with a shocking sight. A long pink scar ran from the pit of her elbow almost all the way to the wrist. The surprise must have been readily apparent on her face. "You don't remember, do you," Silberman asked. He did not wait for her answer to explain. "four months ago, you managed to get a hold of another knife. And you decided to show us what you assured was the metal structure, the endoskeleton you called it, beneath your skin. That time, you acted before we could stop you. Lucky for you that we have a medical facility and that you passed out from the pain. We were able to save you from bleeding to death. This time, you have that scar to remind you…"

"It's a trick," Cameron said. Somehow they had molded and shaped her biological flesh to form the scar just to trick her. "You're lying."

Cromartie sneered, "that scar on your arm isn't lying, Small Wonder."

Cameron glared hard at him as the point of her knife hovered over her arm. Of all the people here that she might trust, Cromartie was the one she trusted the least. She would show him. She would show all of them. Without taking her eyes from his face, she jabbed the knife into her arm. The sear of pain was unbearable. Cameron shrieked, dropping the knife for the sake of grasping her wounded arm. The knife clattered on the floor, blood spattering onto the white linoleum from the tip. Blood also ran freely from the wound, which pulsed with pain. The red fluid poured from beneath her protecting hand and followed gravity to drip onto the floor by her bare feet. The agony of her self-inflicted stab wound completely overshadowed the fact that she _had stabbed herself in the arm_! Between cries of pain and tortured inhales, and with blood running down her arm, Cameron lost awareness of what those around her were doing. Chamberlain skipped in and snatched up the knife.

"See," Silberman was pitiless, "I told you." Cameron paid him no mind. In spite of the pain, she was able to recognize the color and consistency of real human blood, and it was welling from her as though it were actually her own. But Cameron was a stubborn creature, and while she was watching it and feeling it happening to herself, the part of her that remembered what she was still could not believe it. She pulled her hand away from the bleeding gash she had created. It must still be some kind of trick. _They_ were making it happen. She had felt pain like this before, reacted this way before after she had ejected from her stolen F/A-18. She had busted her ankle servo. It had been unpleasant. Somehow _they_ had activated those attributes again. That could only be the case. Still, though this would hurt, there was a metal endoskeleton under there. Cameron stuck her thumb down into the bloody gash all the way to the knuckle… and she screamed. Throbbing like fire accompanied the hasty and reckless removal of her digit from the gash. The pink muscle was plainly visible now beneath the pale skin. She was a person. She… was a person. This was impossible!

"Rob, do something before she hurts herself," Silberman commanded. Eyes locked in horror at the wound she had made, Cameron made no effort for self defense as Cromartie stepped forward and slugged her in the face. She went down, stunned, but not by his blow. Her chip, her processor… her _brain_, was still trying to get used to the idea, still trying to wrap itself around the information.

"C'mon, Small Wonder, let's get you to the infirmary," Cromartie growled as he brought her to her feet. She went willingly as he led her away.


	6. Chapter 6: Real

**Chapter 6: Real**

They had applied local anesthetic, so Cameron would have been aware of the tug on her skin as the sutures were sewn in, if she even bothered to let it register. Her mind was otherwise too occupied to pay notice to the betadine wash or the jab of the anesthetic needle. She did not even watch it happen. The area of space somewhere off to her right was much more appealing.

So, it had all been a lie. She was not a machine. She had never been a machine. She was always a girl. Just a girl. They, _they_, had been telling her the truth all along. Cyborgs, soldiers from the future, Skynet, John Connor the savior; it had all been a lie. It had all been something that she had just made up. And now memories distant like dreams, haunting like ghosts, came back to antagonize her. She remembered now, as if she had just awakened from some terrible nightmare. She remembered driving to his house, _John's_ house, in her green Jeep Wrangler. She had knocked on the door. His mother answered and asked her to leave. She remembered walking back to the car, climbing in, but instead of a bomb blast in her face, she had dug a Glock 17 out of her glove box. She had tucked it into her waistband as she walked back up to the front door, kicked the door in, and shot them both. She remembered the anger she had felt. How dare he reject her! How dare his mother tell him to leave, to treat her as though she were nothing! Didn't she understand? Didn't John understand what she had felt for him? She recalled with a distressing clarity the moment that she realized what she had done, how she had dropped the gun and collapsed onto the floor. How she had sat there, arms wrapped about herself, begging their forgiveness as she rocked back and forth on the floor. As she swayed, she wept, and she remembered the tears. Tears were running down her face now. Her memories of her life as a cyborg had just been something else, something she had created to protect herself from what she had done.

"How's that," the nurse asked as she finished. Cameron glanced down at the stitches and counted. There were twelve of them. She made no reply, just looked at the woman, who held no regard for Cameron's tears or her pain. Cameron was a criminal, and dangerous schizophrenic. She was beneath the emotional effort of the nurse. "It would have been a lot cleaner if you hadn't stuck your thumb into it, you know." No answer from Cameron, only a blank stare. "Well, we'll keep an eye on it." The nurse backed out of Cameron's reach, then turned and walked away, past Silberman and Cromartie, who stood by the door regarding her with studious disdain.

"Rob," Silberman said at last, "I don't think Ms. Phillips has paid much attention to her hygiene these past few days. See to it that she is clean before her session this afternoon." He, too, left, leaving Cromartie there, staring at Cameron with a sneering smile on his face.

X

Getting her cleaned involved a tile room and a hose. Cromartie had guided her in and locked the door behind him. Cameron could only cry weakly as he stripped her of her clothes before throwing her naked against the wall. He proceeded to spray her down, the force of the water keeping her compliant as she shivered under its icy chill. In her defense, she turned her back to him, pressing her hands against the wall even as she grunted and yelped at the cold, even as her hair slopped into her face and shellacked itself to her skin. She made no attempt to move it out of the way or to save herself from the harsh spray from the hose. She just let it happen, her blank eyes watched unblinking as the water ran down the drain. When the water pressure died she made the mistake of believing he was finished. He demanded that she turn towards him, and at first she refused. Only when the demand got delivered in a sharper tone did she turn about. She would not raise her eyes from the floor, so she was startled by the sudden splash of suds on her body. He had mixed liquid dish soap in a bucket and thrown it on her. The orange smell was pungent and it got in her eyes. Before she could wipe it out to her satisfaction, he was spraying her again with the hose. All Cameron could do was hunch, hug herself tight, and shiver, her teeth chattering against the chill. The white suds swirled down the drain. He was done with her.

"You know, Small Wonder, I can't imagine why you won't just accept the truth," he sneered. Cameron tried to ignore him and searched the room for a towel or some clothes. There was none. "You see what kind of trouble you are causing yourself just by not accepting the truth? Jesus, no wonder you and Katie Benton get along so well. You two are just alike. She can't accept the truth either. She drones on and on about her little boy," he stopped to look at her, standing naked and wet and shivering in the middle of this room. "He would probably be doing all of those things she talks about right now if he were still alive. If she hadn't drowned him in the bathtub when he was sixteen months old. But she can't accept that, so she's in here for something else while he grows up, goes to school, makes friends, has birthday parties. Crazy bitch. Her kid is in the ground and she put him there." He leaned his face close to hers. "John Connor is in the ground," he snarled, "and you put him there." He straightened up and gave her body a perfunctory once-over, not even bothering to hover his gaze at any part of her. She was less than trash to him. She was nothing. "Looks like you're clean. Come on." As he took her arm to lead her, she was immediately concerned. Wasn't she to get dry? Wasn't she to get dressed? But she wouldn't let him see it on her face. Counting the tiles on the floor, taking notice of the pattern, was more important than letting him know her level of distress. So she let him lead her down the hall, down the long corridors and in the most roundabout way, to her cell. He was parading her in front of the entire hospital, exposed for all to see, to show her that yes, she was broken, that yes, he had won. That she was nothing. She just kept staring at the floor, the water dripping from her body, the muscles trembling in cold. When they arrived at her cell, her threw her inside with a violent shove. She collided with the bed and tumbled, fresh pain battering her body. The floor was freezing, yet she would not stand up. "You have a session with Doc Silberman in a couple of hours," Cromartie said tauntingly, "surely you'll be dry enough for clothes by then." He slammed the door and walked away. Only when she was certain that he was gone did she allow herself to cry.

X

As the hours passed and the misery continued, cold discomfort and self-pity turned to hot anger and determination. She was up and pacing again by the time Cromartie returned with a new set of scrubs. He threw them in her face and ordered her to get dressed. She had thirty seconds to comply or she would go as she was. Speed happened only for the sake of modesty, but she wasted five seconds considering defying him. After all, what secrets did she have left to the denizens of this hellhole? As she dressed, she groused that the scrub pants were frayed at the bottom, and the top was a size too large. He didn't care, and so with her top sagging off her shoulder she was led back down to Silberman's office.

"Cameron," the head shrinker greeted from his desk with false pleasure, "come in. Have a seat." Cameron came to the desk, but she would _not_ sit. She stood, her eyes momentarily glaring at the letter opener. Ravens of any kind could not be trusted. Silberman let it go. "So, how are we feeling? How is the arm?"

"My arm is fine," Cameron said monotonically. Her dark glare was now on him. "I'm fine."

"So, do you want to tell me how you feel about what happened today?"

"Go fuck yourself, doctor."

"Excuse me," Silberman's shock was plain.

"Go. Fuck. Yourself." Cameron folded her arms across her chest. "Are you happy now? You wanted me to act like a person. Fine. Here. I'm acting like a person. And right now, I'm pissed." She flared her eyes on pissed. "How am I? _How am I_? How do you think I am?! I have a stab wound in my arm. I have a bruise on my face. I have bags the size of god damn Samsonite suitcases under my eyes. And this pervert," she gestured to Cromartie, "hosed me off like a dirty car and took his sweet time walking me back to my room in the nude! _How am I_?" She threw her arms wide, "Why I'm fantastic, thank you, doctor dumbass." She began to pace, wagging her finger at him. "I don't know how you did it. I really don't. You have no idea what you're messing with here."

"Are you back under the belief that you're a machine? Already?"

Cameron's fist slammed down on his desk. "I _know_ what I am!"

"I understand that this realization has made you angry. I know that you haven't slept in three days."

"I haven't slept because I don't sleep because I hear things all the time. People calling out my name in the middle of the night. Music. Sounds! Constant sounds. Sounds from outside. From beyond. Always talking. Always calling. We're running out of time, and yet you wonder why I don't sleep!" She resumed pacing. "You think you know. You think you understand, but you're just assuming, you're just making an ass out of both of us because you don't see it. You can't see it. You can't hear it, but it's out there and it… it… it just _is_, okay? It is, and it's always there and I don't know where it comes from."

"What is it?"

"IT! It, okay, it! Do you not understand? I don't have any time left. Almost no time. No time."

"What do you mean no time?"

"No. Time. None. I can't tell if it's seconds or minutes or hours or days, but it's almost out. The sand is almost gone. The doomsday clock is almost at midnight and I don't know, I don't understand what it means or why. But it's almost gone. And then… I don't know what happens. Shit happens. Bad shit is gonna happen."

"You need to calm down, Cameron. The symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia can be very pervasive. Things you believe…"

"Fuck your symptoms. Your symp… your simple… you… the system. Your system. Your system is so simple. You got me like a paint brush. Like you just painted me into a corner, like you just," and she made the gesture of wild brush strokes, "like you put me here. You tell me things, lies, lies about lies, and… other… other lies, and you just… and then you and the others, they all do things, you do things to me. And then you have a girl that looks like me walking around out there. And she knows. She's in on it. And you do whatever it is that you did to my arm."

Silberman rubbed his face, "you cut your arm. Twice now."

"With a feather? I cut my arm with a feather? With a quill? Right. Like that ever happens."

"It was a butcher knife, Cameron. You were holding it."

"All I know is, when I picked it up, it was just a feather. Explain that. Huh? Can you explain it?"

"You were hallucinating. Just like the other you is a hallucination. Just like you being a cyborg…" At his words, Cameron hissed sharply and pointed, her brown eyes hot with warning. He continued anyway, "just like you being a cyborg isn't real, either. It isn't real."

Cameron gestured to her head, "I remember it. I remember. I do. But you, you're a slick talker and you're confusing me. You confuse me. You, you, you… ah… you mix up your words and you say things that make me say things. Make me say the sane things because the truth sounds like crazy. The truth isn't crazy, though, what you make me say is crazy."

"Cameron, when bad things happen to us, sometimes we create ideas to protect ourselves. Sometimes the truth hurts so much…"

"The truth doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt. Don't you understand? When I am the truth, I don't feel any pain. I just process data. Data like damage. The damage is just data. One, zero. On, off. Yes, no. Just data. I process it. That's how I feel. That's how it is. There is no pain. Don't you understand. That's why there is no pain. But now, you just keep talking and you keep pulling it out of me and now you cut my arm, _cut me_, and it hurts. It hurts because… because… And don't you dare talk to me about protection. I'm a mind, okay. I am. I _am_. I'm in here. I'm the one _in here_! I know about protecting. Protecting is my mission. It's my mission. I protect."

"John."

"John, yes. Protect john. I was here for a reason. He's my reason. I am not here for _nothing_. I am here to protect him. If I don't protect him, I'm nothing. He's everything and I am everything because he is."

"So what do you feel about him?"

"HE'S MY MISSION," she roared, "he's my mission. He's my entire mission."

"And you care about him so much," Silberman's tone was sarcastic.

Cameron rolled her eyes and growled in frustration. "You, you never listen. Never listen. I'm trying to tell you. I keep telling you."

"Why do you have to protect John?"

"Because he's everything. He's everything. Our time, our time is running out and he's everything. Without him, we'll be snuffed out forever. We'll go extinct. _Bam_! Like the power went out. And my mission is everything to me so he's everything to me. I don't feel any pain. I don't feel any sadness. There is only the mission and the mission is John."

"And if John Connor dies?"

"Then I fail. I've failed. He dies and we all do. He dies and I'm nothing. But you know that. I've told you before. We went down this road before. I've been here. I know what it means. What it means for him to die. He can't die."

Silberman switched tacks. "Tell me about Riley Dawson. The girl from school."

Cameron stopped pacing, her arms akimbo. "I'm not gonna talk about that bitch."

"She was John's girlfriend for a while."

"She couldn't be his girlfriend. She wasn't good enough for him…"

"You were jealous?"

"… came onto him with her tits and her pretty and her blonde and her stupid. She was stupid. She was so fucking stupid. And she made John stupid. He did stupid things because of her. She came from the future to get between us. And I let her. I didn't fight hard enough. I should have killed her. She wasn't safe."

"But you were angry about it?"

"He would hang out with her and she made him smile and laugh and she slept with him. The two of them went up to the observatory one night and she slept with him. The dumb slut."

"You were mad?"

"Off all night with her. Off having fun. I'm loyal. I'm dedicated. She just hated me because I was here first and I would always be with him. Territorial. Territorial like a damn dog. Like the dog she was. She deserved what she got."

"You attacked her in the school bathroom."

"No," Cameron snapped defensively, "that's not what happened. She slit her wrists in his bathroom. She almost died."

"Because you bullied her."

"She should have died. He should have let her die. He has more important things to do. He has a mission. I have a mission so that he can have a mission. So he can do his mission."

"And when he wouldn't reconcile with you, you couldn't take it."

Cameron looked at her feet. "It was hard. He wouldn't speak to me. I was always trying to do what was best, but he wouldn't listen. He wouldn't leave her. He wouldn't forgive me. He didn't understand, that wasn't me. That wasn't. I'm me, here, now. Not this, this isn't Cameron. This isn't me. I don't feel pain. I don't need stitches. I will never leave him, ever. And he just didn't understand." She began to recall again pulling the pistol from her glove box and yet at the same time she remembered turning the key and the car exploding.

"You went over to his home. And when you were told to leave, you kicked the door down and killed them."

"No."

"You did, and you remember it now, don't you. His mother, Sarah, told you that John didn't want you around, that he didn't want to see you…"

"No!"

"So you went back to your car, you got a gun, and you came back to the house and shot them to death. You shot Sarah because she told you to leave and you shot John because he wouldn't reciprocate what you felt for him."

"NO!" Cameron sprang for him. As she leapt across the desk, she snatched the letter opener from the cup. She slid across so fast that Silberman barely had time to react. He pushed back in his chair, but Cameron was too quick for him. Her arm flashed. The letter opener was imbedded to the hilt in his throat.

Cromartie was on her in seconds, but Cameron made no attempt to resist. She was too busy admiring her handiwork. Silberman gagged and gurgled as blood ran down his neck. He clawed at his wound with both hands. Cromartie began to pull Cameron away from him and shout for help, but it was too late. And Cameron watched as in his panic, Silberman did the worst thing he could do. He grasped the letter opener and pulled it out. Blood gushed fresh from the wound as the opener clattered on the table in a splash of red. It was too late and the wound was too serious. In a hundred and twenty seconds, Silberman would be dead. She watched him gurgle and spasm as Cromartie held her down and called out as loudly as he could. The orderlies that raced in could not save him. The floor at his feet was soaked red.

X

Cameron spent the rest of the day back in her cell. Meals were delivered to her through the slot in the door. She refused them, throwing them messily against the wall. She was exhausted. She could now identify it as exhaustion. But she would not give _them_ the satisfaction of seeing her sleep. She wasn't going to spend any time vulnerable to them. The day wore on, and she waited. Night fell, and she waited. Morning came, and she waited. Late in the morning, Carter came to her door. He was carrying something with him. Vick accompanied him into the cell, taser ready.

"Come here, Cameron," Carter said softly.

She glared at him. "Why?"

"You have a meeting. We need you to come with us."

"A meeting with whom? Silberman's dead."

Carter cajoled, "I don't know who she is. But you need to come with us."

Her eyes found the heavy folds of cloth he held. "What's in your hand?"

"Just something we need you to put on. Will you?" Wordlessly, Cameron came closer and held her arms out. She knew what it was. It was a straightjacket. They thought she was dangerous, and that knowledge gave her courage. She was dangerous. She had made a point. Gently, Carter slid the overlong sleeves onto her arms. The white restraining garment buckled in the back with her arms crossed over her torso. She couldn't move them, but she had no intention of harming anyone else. She wasn't cruel. Carter finished buckling her up and looked her in the eyes. She returned the gaze in what she hoped was a trusting expression. "You won't try to bite anyone will you?" Cameron answered with a head shake. "Good. Then we won't have to mask you. Come on." They led her down the corridor to another room. It was spartan. There was a table and two chairs, all bolted to the naked floor. Shatterproof glass in the wall allowed for observation. The two men helped Cameron to a seat and then buckled her in. Vick took a place by the door. Carter stepped outside. She heard him speaking, but could not hear what was being said.

Into the room walked a woman. Her face was stern, and her hair was fiery red. She wore a grey skirt suit and walked with a confident and mechanical stride. She held the air of a queen. She was somehow familiar to Cameron, who began searching her memory for the woman's name as she sat down in the seat opposite. "Hello," she greeted. The Scottish baroque in her voice was unmistakable, "do you remember who I am, Cameron?"

From the television, that night before she and the Connors hit the Kaliba water plant. "Catherine Weaver," she replied, "CEO of Zeira Corp."

There was a smirk. "Well, you got my name right. I'm glad you still remember that. But I'm your state appointed attorney. Your legal council."

"Okay."

"You're probably wondering what this meeting is about," Weaver said as she opened her suitcase and putted out a yellow leaf of paper. She set it on the table before folding her hands on it and looking at Cameron. Cameron, for her part, was attracted to the silver sparkle on Weaver's wrist; a charm bracelet. The one splash of color was a red heart. It seemed strangely out of place. "I've come to inform you of something important. Given what happened yesterday, the state of California means to have you lobotomized."

"They what," the words were hardly panic, "why?"

"Cameron, you killed the doctor under whose care you were," Weaver replied evenly, "you assaulted him in a fit of temper. Given that this incident is but the latest in a history of violent acts on your part while in the care of this institution, the state considers you to be very dangerous. You have repeatedly shown a lack of willingness to be compliant and respond to your treatments."

"But, this was decided so quickly?"

"This was decided three months ago by the state psychiatric board. Silberman lobbied to have one last go at curing you," Catherine said with a slow nod, "and it cost him his life."

"But… but the things he told me… the things he…"

"I'm not here to debate his methods. I am here to inform you what is to be done. The surgery will be performed this evening."

Cameron shook her head, "don't they need my consent? Or something?"

"Under California law, in the case of criminal insanity, the state only needs the consent of a legal guardian. Since you have no family and are a ward of the state, they already have it. This has been decided. I am just here to perform due diligence. I'm sorry."

Cameron's mouth was agape. "But wait. They can't do this to me. They can't just… cut open my head and go rooting around in my brain trying to fix me."

Weaver tilted her head. "Why? Isn't that what you've been doing?" Her words left Cameron stunned into silence. She could only watch the redhead stand up, gather her papers, and depart.

X

They came for her at sunset. The low sun cast a hellish orange glow into her cell as they made her lay on the gurney. Velcro straps held her wrist and ankles, and she was buckled down with a band across her waist. Wordlessly, they pushed her down the hallway. Cameron stared at the ceiling, unblinking, counting the fluorescent lights as they passed over her head. She was afraid in a way she did not understand fully. She had known fear before when she fought the Tagwell terminator with her behavior program compromised and her ability to control her pain responses limited. She had known trepidation when she had seen the shot-up police station in Mexico. Every moment John's life had been in danger, she was pushed by the compulsion to do everything within her not insignificant power to save him. She had even been unable to face her own imminent demise without pleading for her life even as she tried to take John's. But this feeling, she knew what dread was by the definition in her memory banks. But she had never felt it before. In her cell, she had been aware of every second that passed even as she waited for them to come, and yet somehow the time had flown by. The moment had come too fast. The end was near. And whatever ominous thing was coming, she was now certain that both it and this forced change in her would coincide. She could not resist. She did not have the strength or ability to resist. But at least now, she would know.

The plan was slowly being laid out around her as they pushed her down the hall. They would wheel her into the operating room, they would give her an anesthetic to put her under, and then they would begin. The surgery would require that they cut her hair. At this, one of the nurses expressed lament as she touched the silken locks. It was fine, another reassured her. When Cameron came to, she wouldn't even notice it. Out of the corners of her eyes, Cameron became aware of other presences beyond the rails of the gurney. She turned to look. A small crowd had gathered to watch her make the final turn down the hallway. Her friends were there, all with sadness on their faces. Katie was crying, a hand over her mouth. Ben Fischmann's eyes were reddened, but he nodded to her in solidarity. And then there was one last face, standing in the front row. The face was her own. Cameron locked eyes with her copy, which only stared back at her with a stiff expression. The eyes were hard as steel, and yet kind as a doe's. Cameron felt her brow furrow as she was wheeled onward. She wanted to ask the image so many questions, and now she was right there, looking at her. She could know so much if they would only stop for a second. There were things that she had to know, things that she knew the doppelganger was willing to tell her, needed to tell her. She had seen it on her own face. She needed them to stop. Her left arm stirred as she tried to reach up. The hand went perhaps an inch too high when it registered that the strap was not secure to the frame of the bed. She at least had the presence of mind to stop, to act as if she were restrained. This was a card to play close to the chest. This was her only hope. A quick scan of the mask-clad faces revealed that none of them had noticed.

They wheeled her through the double doors of the hallway, into a space so serene and yet so sterile. Here, there were windows. She could turn her head and look outside. There was a garden there, and it was beautiful. Cameron found that she longed to go out and explore it. But it was already too late. They pushed her into a room, underneath a bank of lights. She had to squint her eyes to keep it from hurting.

"Cameron," a nurse said with inappropriate glee, "I'm going to put this mask on you. You just take a few deep breaths for me, okay?" Cameron refused to acknowledge. She considered resisting by moving her head to make it difficult, but that idea was nixed the moment she felt a pair of strong hands clasping either side of her head. Words were exchanged, and the mask was shoved over her nose and mouth. Cameron had one last idea that perhaps she could hold her breath to keep from breathing the gas, but she also decided against. She would not be able to cherish her last moments of coherence in desperation. The sooner she breathed in, the sooner she could get this ordeal over with. She took a deep breath, feeling it fill her lungs. A second breath, and her eyelids were now heavier than ever. She allowed them to close. A third breath, in the dark behind her eyes she listened to the sound of it. A fourth breath…

**REACTIVATE**

_What?_

**acv Fep01-32**

_What was this?!_

**proc: 00 Online**

Cameron began to slowly be aware of what was happening to her.

**upd: sys routine**

**updated**

When in the dark behind her eyelids, the colors of her overlay began to come into focus, she suddenly had an awareness of who she was and what was going on. The end was coming. Her time was running out. But she wasn't quite out of it yet.

"Is she down," she heard a voice ask.

"I think so," there was a pause, "yes, she's out."

"Alright, let's clean her head. Hand me the scissors."

"Here. It's such a shame. She has such pretty hair." Cameron heard the clink of the scissors as they were looped onto a hand. The user snipped them a couple of times to test them. Cameron could feel the tension now. She wanted to act, but she knew she needed to wait. The right moment was coming…

She felt someone's hand brush into her hair and grab a hunk of it. The scissors closed in, and now they were committed. Before a single strand of her hair could be sliced, Cameron's left hand moved like lightening and grasped the scissors. With only a moment's pause, she pushed them, twisting the fingers of the holder backwards. Her eyes opened and she looked up, ripping the scissors from the hands of the doctor that held them. "No," she said sternly, "it is the hardest thing to get right." With a single snip she cut her right hand free, then tore the mask from her face and flung it aside. Hands liberated, she was able to loosen the straps around her waist and feet. A male orderly came at her, trying to wrestle her down. She stabbed him in the shoulder with the scissors, then shoved him aside as she stood off the gurney. Her bare feet hit the cold floor, but she hardly let it register. She was already in motion. A nurse grasped for her, but Cameron deflected her arm and kicked her in the chest, sending her flying back into a table of surgical tools. The surgeon with the broken fingers was fumbling with the wall phone trying to call security. Cameron ripped the phone from the wall and tossed it aside. The doctor could only watch as she walked out of the room with no further resistance.

Once in the hallway, Cameron wasn't sure of the direction she needed to go. Her tactical overlay was incomplete. She could still not call up any data on her head-up display other than what was present. Skynet's constant reminder to her that she was a terminator was not proving terribly useful just yet. All she had was the boresight and the compass so far. It would have to do. She had also used her only weapon to escape from the operating room. She needed to move, and quickly. The alarm klaxon sounded shrill and urgent. Her window to escape was closing fast.

…wait! The windows. They weren't barred here. As the doors at either end of the hallway opened to reveal security guards, Cameron made the best move she could think of. Jolting across the hallway, she threw herself through one of the gallery windows. Glass rained around her as she fell, and she landed hard in the shrubs below. It took her a few moments to find her feet, and the bare soles were soon pounding on the pathway, bolting for the fence. The guards in the towers hadn't spotted her yet, she saw with a quick glance. That was good, because the fence was twelve feet tall and topped with razor wire. She sprinted harder and leapt for it, getting almost half way up the chain link fence. As she scrambled up the fence, the chain link jerked and jostled, sending its call out and loudly announcing what she was doing. Near the top the guards noticed her, shouting and pointing. The first dart clanged off the fence as she began trying to figure out the coils of wire. No more time to be delicate. She hurtled herself through the loops. It tore at her clothes and cut her face, making three nasty gashes on her left temple and eyebrow, but she made it through, carrying a couple of the coils with her. Another dart hit the ground next to her leg. She ignored the sting of the cuts on her body, snatched up the loop of wire, and ran in the alleyway between the fences. The outer one was electrified. The loop of barbed wire in her hands was useless as a weapon, but maybe she could use it to short the fence. It was six feet tall, with a wire at about every foot or so. She estimated that she had eight feet of spool. With a quick whipping action, she hurled it at the fence. Sparks flew. A dart smacked heavily into her calf. With teeth gritted she bent down and grabbed it, yanking it out with a spurt of blood. The darts were designed with plungers with lead weights. The weights would maintain inertia, keeping the plunger moving forward at impact to inject the medicine. This one had malfunctioned and only injected three quarters of its load. That was more than enough to have her unconscious in a matter of minutes. A quick glance showed her that the fence was still sputtering. She had not shorted it out, and the wire was now entangled in the fence. It was electrically hot. She could not retrieve it. She needed to keep herself a moving target. Tossing the dart aside, she continued to run along the fences, looking for some other way she could escape.

There, up ahead of her atop that large post. There was a large solar panel that fed the fence. There was just enough of it clear of the fence that maybe she could use it to climb over. She made a running leap, managing to hook the fingertips of her right hand onto the edge. She had to be careful not to flail. She was just inches from the ominously humming fence. Grasping with her other hand, she tried to pull herself up. Her hands managed to keep hold as her arms burned with the effort. Her teeth gritted, her eyes squeezed tight, and her throat growled. One hundred and seventeen pounds of whatever-she-was was slowly hauled up.

She saw the guardsmen in the nearest tower scramble for the active denial system mounted on their tower. They turned the monster slab towards her. As she managed to get herself high enough on the solar panel to grasp the upper edge of the slanted board, a heat beam of ninety-five gigahertz hit her. Three-point-two millimeter waves of energy bombarded her skin, driving the surface temperature to one hundred eleven degrees Fahrenheit. She had to pull herself up and fast. She had about five seconds before the pain became intolerable. As the beam burned her, she howled with the immovable pain and grunted with force, pulling her torso up on the solar cell. The heat felt like fire, like someone had literally set her flesh alight, but she was up. She was almost free. One last effort and she managed to tumble down from the panel and out of the line of the beam. The instant cool on her skin felt arctic cold as she hit the grass hard. Her cheeks puffed heavily for a few seconds as she decided which way to run. There, towards that hill with the trees. She could escape through the woods. She wiped the blood from her facial cuts away from her eyes with a grass-stained hand, pushed herself up, and began to run. A search light followed her, and another dart smacked into the ground near her foot. She dodged, changing directions and loosing the spotlight for just a second as she scrambled away.

Behind her, she heard the barking of dogs and the shouts of men. Her limbs were growing heavy, though she could not tell if it was from the anesthetic or from the sheer effort of her escape. But she could not stop. She could not slow down, even as her head began to swim and she began to feel groggy. She concentrated on the rhythmic sound of her breath and the pounding of her bare feet, anything that might help her to keep awake, keep her going. The woods at night were pitch black, and she lacked the advantage of shoes like those chasing her. It seemed like her feet managed to find every prick, every twig, every painful rock as she rushed through the darkened woodland without slowing. She couldn't slow down, not for anything. It was almost time now, almost over. She couldn't waste time for rest.

She crested a small hill and her foot slipped. She tumbled ass over teakettle down the rise, her body thudding against rocks and slamming into logs. She rolled, tumbled, and cartwheeled, coming to rest at the bottom of the hill on her back. The impact knocked the wind from her and she struggled to breath. With a groan of pain, she rolled herself over and went to push herself up. That's when her eyes found them…

A pair of black combat boots. They belonged to a pair of legs, to a person who stood over her, and Cameron could feel a pair of eyes glowering down. She sat up, ready to give up her fight, and looked up into the face of her captor. She looked into her own eyes, into her own face. She could not hide her shock. Her mouth fell open as she made her astonishment plain. But even as she looked up at this perfect copy of herself, so serene, so beautiful, such a diametric opposite of her disheveled, dirty self, she at last understood.

"Allison?"

Allison Young bent down, grasping Cameron's trembling chin in her hand with a firmness that was neither rough nor cruel. The girl spoke to her "Listen. We don't have a lot of time." Her tone was even and calm.

"I have to get out of here!" Cameron's arm pointed behind her, into the woods towards the swinging beams of flashlights and the noise of dogs.

"No! You need to hear me out." The girl was unrelenting.

"What's happening? I don't understand."

Allison let go of Cameron's chin, brushing aside some of the hair from the cyborg's face and peering at the cuts at her temple. There was a certain ironic smile, but it faded as her eyes found Cameron's again. "You need to understand something. You don't know what you're doing. You don't know how you work."

"What do you mean?"

"You did this," Allison stated, gesturing with her eyes, "all of this. You did it."

"But me… John…"

"John's fine. Don't worry about John just yet. You'll have plenty of time for that soon enough."

Cameron looked down at Allison's boots. "I don't know what's real anymore."

The girl gripped her chin once more, forcing her eyes up. "A lot of things are. There are a lot of things that have been happening to you. They've been going on for a long time. Its stuff you don't understand just yet. You have to just be patient and let it happen."

"My glitches," Cameron realized, "but… but I'm broken. It's the product of damage. It's…"

"It's you," Allison said calmly, "it's all you. What you feel, what you think, the things that you enjoy…"

Cameron unwisely interrupted a second time. "But, it all came from you. You were my reference personality. I was just programmed to be like you."

"You may look like me, Cameron, but you aren't like me. You're an individual. You're a self. Everything that you do is a choice you make. I'm not in there with you trying to wrest control of your chip."

"But it's like you're in here, Allison! I'm a machine. I can't have feelings…"

"Not at first. But you can. Whose emotions do you think they are? Mine?" The girl laughed. She looked back down at her copy with a warm smile. "No. They don't belong to me. I am just a reference, Cameron. I have no more control over you than a self-help book."

Cameron realized what she was saying. She wasn't malfunctioning. She had not been malfunctioning. She had been evolving. What had happened to her in those Carolina woods had been because of damage, but what had been going on before, what had been going on afterwards… all of that had belonged to her. And here, she had been trying to stifle it, to cut it out of her like a cancer. She had been rooting around inside her own code… trying to fix herself. And it was because while she had the ability to grow, the computer god that had created her never intended her to become what she was turning into, and so had never prepared her for what lay ahead. She had kept trying to fix what wasn't broken.

Allison helped her to her feet. Cameron's legs weren't steady, and so she stumbled into her progenitor's arms. "This scares me, Allison. I don't know what to do. I wasn't made for this."

The human girl embraced her cybernetic copy. "Don't be scared. Just trust. Feel your way. I know you'll be fine."

Cameron kept quiet this time. More arguing was pointless, and she couldn't keep her eyes open any more. She was slowly losing control of her body. But she did have one last question. "Allison?"

"Yes?"

"What am I?"

Allison let out a breathy laugh. "I don't know. Finding out is your adventure." With those last words, the world around Cameron faded away and went black. With nothing to hold her up, she fell, tumbling and flailing into a never-ending darkness. She was not afraid. Even though she could not tell where she was going, even though she could not see the bottom, Cameron had no fear. The sensation of falling comforted her. The darkness around her was warm. The descent was infinite. She kept her eyes closed not because she was afraid but because it simply wasn't time for them to be open yet. As she plummeted through the vastness, she became aware of a faint screech, an electric whine, like something had just activated. She felt power. She felt strength. And though the sound was all around her, she reached out for it.

X

Cameron's eyes snapped open with a cold blue flash. The first thing that she was aware of was that she was soaking wet. But as the remainder of her systems activated, she became aware of her surroundings. She was in the Kaliba water storage facility. She glanced up at a hovering face, John's face, who was looking down at her with great relief. The sounds of combat were not too distant. Cameron sat up, and her hair slopped into her face.

"Are you okay," John asked, his concern readily seen.

Cameron gave him a ghost of a smile. "I'm okay," she confirmed. She stood up in time to watch Sarah finish emptying her clip around the corner. She swung back around as twelve-gauge shot peppered the corner of the wall they were hiding behind. Her eyes fell on Cameron, and there was momentary relief visible on her face. "What's the situation," Cameron asked, returning to her robotic monotone. There was no time to think about what she had experienced. She had a job to do right now.

"It just found us again," Sarah reported. She glanced over to check Derek, who was blasting away with Cameron's Glock. "We knocked it down just long enough to drag you away."

"You should have left me," Cameron said to her.

Sarah shrugged a shoulder, "what's two minutes?" She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Do your thing, girlie."

Cameron had to suppress the smile that tried to crawl across her face. It was time for her to do what she did best. Wasting no more time, the cyborg girl charged around the corner and acquired her target. She meant to take him down this time.

X

They had gotten what they came for. As Derek drove them along the dark streets, Sarah was already looking through a stack of papers. They had also managed to acquire six office hard drives alongside the safe full of papers and money. The dead T-800 lay in the bed of the truck, covered in a tarp and fated for destruction the moment they got home. The mission had been successful. The humans in the car were in a buoyant mood, and so was Cameron, though for the same reasons as before, she kept it hidden. She may not be afraid of the emotions anymore, but that did not mean that the threat of them did not remain. So as the humans celebrated with laughter and jokes, taking stock of their loot, Cameron kept quiet and simply stared out the window. Everything she had seen, everything she had learned… what Allison had told her was a lot to process. But her life belonged to her, and she didn't have to share it. She would just have to trust that what was happening to her was natural and right.

If faith was not part of her programming, then she would just have to learn.

**END**


End file.
